World Jul. 25, 2008 - 06:26AM JST ( 7 )

KABUL —

The NATO chief called Thursday for Pakistan to be more involved in tackling extremist bases on its soil, as Afghanistan was hit by new attacks with at least 34 Taliban bodies found after one battle.

NATO was concerned by a spike in terror attacks but would not enter Pakistan to hunt down militants based there, the alliance’s Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer also told reporters in Kabul.

Scheffer was visiting amid high tension between Afghanistan and Pakistan over the violence, including the bombing of the Indian embassy here this month that Kabul has directly blamed on its neighbor’s intelligence agency.

“I cannot think of anyone who would consider it acceptable that many terrorists from all over the world gather in a certain area and create mischief and havoc there,” Scheffer told reporters, in a reference to militant bases in Pakistan.

“The bottom line is that the present situation cannot be acceptable for anyone,” Scheffer told reporters after talks with President Hamid Karzai.

Afghan and Western officials have long said that the Taliban and al-Qaida have been able to regroup in Pakistan’s semi-autonomous tribal areas after they were expelled from Afghanistan in 2001 in a U.S.-led invasion.

Some accuse Islamabad of not doing enough to tackle them and criticize its efforts to negotiate peace deals.

Karzai reiterated his call for the focus of the international effort against extremism to be focused on militant hideouts across the border.

“The fight against terrorism is not in Afghanistan and we will not be secure and safe unless we address the question of sanctuaries in Pakistan, the terrorist training camps there and the motivation that they are given there.”

Scheffer said Pakistan had to be part of the solution to the problem.

“Our forces in Afghanistan are also the victims of the surge and uptick in violent incidents we have seen recently. But let us practice a regional approach and let us involve all the regional actors here,” he said.

In new violence in Afghanistan Thursday, security forces were ambushed on the main road between Kabul and Kandahar and fought back in an hours-long battle.

“At least 34 enemy dead bodies are at the battlefield but we believe there are many more killed,” defense ministry spokesman Mohammed Zahir Azimi said.

The interior ministry said 70 militants were killed in the fighting in Shah Joy, which is about 200 kilometers from the southern city of Kandahar. Among the dead were two Arabs and four Chechens, it said.

The Afghan army was deployed on the key road this month after a surge in attacks along the route. Taliban have captured several Afghans traveling on the road and killed them, accusing them of working for the government and its allies.

In the central province of Ghazni meanwhile, a joint NATO-Afghan operation to take back Ajristan district had left 15 militants dead, a provincial government spokesman said.

A remote-controlled bomb destroyed a police vehicle in the eastern province of Paktia early Thursday, killing four policemen and wounding two others, said deputy provincial police chief Ghulam Dastageer Azad.

Taliban fighters also ambushed a police vehicle on patrol in the southwestern province of Farah overnight and killed three policemen another police official said.

The hardline Islamic Taliban were in government between 1996 and 2001 when they were driven out in a U.S.-led invasion.

Wire reports