NATO beefs up forces along Afghan-Pakistan border

By Jon Hemming

KABUL (Reuters) - NATO has reinforced troops along the Afghan border anticipating peace deals between Pakistan and the Taliban will allow the insurgents to launch more attacks into Afghanistan, NATO's commander in Afghanistan said.

Pakistan has begun thinning out troops in parts of its border region and freed Taliban prisoners to try to seal a peace with al Qaeda-linked militants active on both sides of the frontier.

"Our analysis of the previous peace deals ... is that when that dialogue is ongoing or when talks have been consummated in peace deals we see a spike in the untoward events that we experience on our side of the border," said General Dan McNeill, commander of NATO's 47,000-strong International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan.

NATO says there has already been a sharp increase in militant attacks in eastern Afghanistan, the area closest to the parts of Pakistan where peace talks are underway. Mostly U.S. troops are responsible for helping Afghan forces patrol mountainous region.

"We are going to have a bit of a plus-up in the U.S. sector," McNeill told Reuters. "Because we expect more activity there, we attune some of our intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance processes and systems to focus where we anticipate things."

ISAF, some 12,000 troops in a separate U.S.-led coalition force and more than 100,000 Afghan soldiers and police are fighting to contain a Taliban insurgency relaunched two years ago with a guerrilla campaign, backed by suicide and roadside bombs.

More than 6,000 people were killed in the violence last year, some 2,000 of them civilians, NGOs estimate.

The Taliban are made up of several loosely allied groups which make their own operational plans, but accept guidance from a shura, or council, led by the reclusive Mullah Mohammad Omar.