U.S., NATO Press Pakistan To Fight Terror

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Friday that Pakistan should do more to stop the rise in terrorist violence in neighboring Afghanistan.

Rice said there has been an uptick in terrorism recently in Afghanistan, and that Islamabad must help in preventing militants from organizing attacks into Afghanistan from Pakistan's Northwest Frontier Province.

Rice was speaking to reporters during a trip to Australia, whose foreign minister agreed Pakistan should help end militant activity in the restive border region between the two countries.

Meanwhile, NATO's secretary general more gently urged Pakistan to be involved in international attempts to end cross-border attacks into Afghanistan, as dozens of insurgents were reported killed in fresh violence.

Afghanistan faces intensifying militancy nearly seven years after the U.S.-led invasion ousted the hard-line Islamic Taliban movement from power. More than 2,700 people - most of them militants - have died in insurgency-related violence this year, according to an Associated Press tally of official figures.

President Hamid Karzai and other Afghan officials have blamed the growing insurgency in part on Pakistan, saying the government there does not do enough to root out militants using its largely lawless tribal regions as sanctuaries and bases from which to launch attacks.

But during a joint press conference with Karzai on Thursday, NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said that simply blaming Pakistan for increased cross-border attacks is not the best method. He called for a regional approach to resolving the issue that would include Pakistan, which has defended its efforts to end militancy on its side.

"Only saying Pakistan is part of the problem or Pakistan is the problem might clear your conscience but will not help in solving the problem," de Hoop Scheffer said.

Karzai insisted that Afghanistan will not be secure unless militant sanctuaries in Pakistan are dealt with.

A major clash occurred Thursday after militants attacked an Afghan military convoy in Shah Joy district of Zabul province in the south, said deputy provincial police chief Jailani Khan.

Khan said the army called for assistance from the U.S.-led coalition and Afghan police, and the three forces surrounded the insurgents, killing 35, at least two of whom were Arabs. Five Taliban militants were arrested, he said.

"There was no report of any casualties among the coalition and Afghan forces," Khan said.

Other Afghan officials gave different death tolls for the battle. The varying figures could not be reconciled, and independent confirmation was impossible because of the insecure nature of the area.

Gen. Mohammad Zahir Azimi, spokesman for the Ministry of Defense, said at least 34 militants' bodies were counted on the field. The Ministry of the Interior, meanwhile, issued a statement saying 70 militants were killed, including two Arabs and four Chechens, and that four militants were arrested.

The U.S.-led coalition, meanwhile, said it had no immediate reports of any activity in the area involving its troops.