By Sayed Salahuddin
Reuters
Thursday, January 11, 2007; 7:51 AM

KABUL (Reuters) - NATO and Afghan troops killed up to 150 insurgents in a ground and air attack in southeastern Afghanistan after the insurgents infiltrated from neighboring Pakistan, the alliance said on Thursday.

Afghan anger over the infiltration of Taliban militants from Pakistan has soured relations between the neighbors, both important U.S. allies in the war on terrorism.

The latest fighting, which appeared to be the biggest clash in Afghanistan in months, occurred on Wednesday night in the mountainous Bermal district of Paktika province, NATO said.

NATO and Afghan forces observed two large groups of insurgents gathering on the Pakistani side of the border, said a spokesman.

"They spotted them, they tracked them, then, when they entered Afghanistan and were a threat to ISAF and Afghan forces nearby, they were engaged with air power and artillery," said Mark Laity, spokesman for NATO's International Security Assistance Force.

"The result was, in a running series of engagements, about 150 killed."

The casualty estimate was based on initial battle damage reports, NATO said. The Pakistani military had been kept fully informed during the operation, NATO said.

The Afghan Defense Ministry said it estimated 80 insurgents had been killed. Eleven bodies had been recovered.

The Taliban rejected the NATO report as "baseless and false" and said no fighters had been killed.

"Only civilians were targeted," a Taliban spokesman, Mohammad Hanif, said by telephone.

If confirmed, the death toll would be the highest since September when NATO troops forced the Taliban out of a district near the southern city of Kandahar in a two-week offensive that NATO said killed at least 500 insurgents.

Last year was the bloodiest since U.S.-led forces overthrew the Taliban in 2001. More than 4,000 people, including nearly 170 foreign troops, were killed.

Afghanistan says the militants have sanctuaries in Pakistan from where they plot and launch attacks.

FRUSTRATION

Pakistan was the main supporter of the Taliban until the September 11 attacks. It denies any official help for the Taliban but says some militants are crossing into Afghanistan from Pakistani tribal lands where Pakistani forces have been battling militants.

An increasingly frustrated Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, leveled his strongest ever criticism at Pakistan last month, for the first time openly accusing state elements of supporting the insurgents.

Assistant U.S. Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Richard Boucher said Pakistan was committed to battling militancy.

"We think that commitment is real," Boucher told a news conference in Kabul when asked about Afghan doubts Pakistan was doing enough to stop the Taliban.

"There are always questions, with all of us, about what more we need to do to make these policies effective," he said.

Boucher was due to travel to Pakistan for talks that he expected would include a Pakistani plan to build a fence and lay landmines on parts of the border to stop infiltration.

Afghanistan opposes the plan. It does not recognize the colonial-era border and says the fortifications would unfairly divide Pashtun communities straddling the frontier. Pakistan should crack down on Taliban there, it says.

(Additional reporting by Robert Birsel in KABUL, Saeed Ali Achakzai in SPIN BOLDAK)