KABUL — The US commander of the Afghan war acknowledged Tuesday that the Taliban were expanding their footprint across the country even as international forces close in on their traditional southern strongholds.
General David Petraeus said a sharp rise in attacks on foreign troops showed the Taliban were feeling threatened but said there needed to be political as well as military action to wipe out the "industrial-strength insurgency".
In an interview with foreign media organisations, Petraeus also hailed the counter-insurgency efforts by neighbouring Pakistan, which has faced accusations it has not done enough to combat extremism.
Petraeus said the overall campaign strategy in Afghanistan after almost nine years of war was reaching its "final stages," with the number of US and NATO troops set to peak at 150,000 in the coming days.
The number of American troops killed fighting the Taliban in the last four days hit 22 on Tuesday with the deaths of five US soldiers in the east of the country, NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said.
The total number of foreign troops to die this year is now 485, compared to 521 for all of 2009, according to an AFP count based on a tally kept by the independent icasualties.org.
Petraeus said the intensified fighting was a reflection of the militants' desperation as the alliance poured in more resources in an effort to speed an end to the war.
US President Barack Obama's surge of an extra 30,000 troops, announced last December, is aimed at flooding the Taliban hotspots of Kandahar and Helmand and adding pressure on the insurgents, he said.
"Levels of attacks have gone up and that's a manifestation of us increasing our resources substantially and taking away safe havens that the Taliban have been able to establish over the course of the last several years," he said.
"And when the enemy's safe havens are threatened they fight back.
"I said in testimony last year several times... that indeed it would become harder before it got easier. That's the nature of these endeavours," he said.
Petraeus acknowledged the spread of Taliban influence, especially to parts of the formerly peaceful north.
"I don't think anyone disagrees that the footprint of the Taliban has spread," he said, adding the insurgents had "reconnected in various safe havens and sanctuaries outside and inside the country," a reference to Pakistan.
"The US and ISAF forces in Afghanistan have worked hard to try to get the inputs right, to establish the organisations that are necessary for the conduct of a civil-military counter-insurgency campaign with our Afghan partners.
Petraeus, 57, took over command of international forces in Afghanistan on June 4, after his predecessor US General Stanley McChrystal was sacked.
As US combat forces pulled out of Iraq, Petraeus said Obama's plan to begin drawing down in Afghanistan from next July would be gradual.
Obama has been accused of stoking Taliban morale with the withdrawal announcement, though his administration has said any drawdown would be "conditions based".
"The transition likely will occur in districts initially, rather than in entire provinces although there may be some provinces where this may be possible," Petraeus said.
While the surge had hit the Taliban leadership hard, he said, "you don't kill or capture your way out of an industrial strength insurgency".
Military effort needed to be backed with good governance in order to build popular faith in the government, he said.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai, whose government was first installed by the West after the toppling of the Taliban in 2001, has criticised the coalition strategy as "ineffective" and resulted only in civilian casualties.
Petraeus said Karzai's call last week for a shift in military focus to insurgent hideouts in neighbouring Pakistan was "understandable... and we share those concerns".
"We have obviously worked with our Pakistani partners over time to increase their capability to deal with the extremist elements on their soil who are threatening their writ of governance and who are causing enormous security problems in Afghanistan and in some cases in other areas of the world as well," Petraeus said.
"The fact is that Pakistan does deserve credit for having waged a very impressive counter-insurgency campaign over the last 18 months."
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