By Sayed Salahuddin KABUL, May 3 (Reuters) - Afghanistan backs Islamabad's plan to hold talks with the Pakistani Taliban, the government said on Saturday, but urged its neighbour not to allow the militants space to regroup and launch raids across the border. Pakistan's new coalition government has said it wants to open talks with the Taliban in a bid to break with the policies of President Pervez Musharraf. Musharraf's support for the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan and its campaign against the militants is deeply unpopular, particularly among the Pashtun tribes who straddle the border. Baitullah Mehsud, a leader of the Pakistani Taliban and an al Qaeda ally, pulled out of a peace deal with Islamabad last week after it refused to withdraw the army from tribal lands. Mehsud has been accused of a wave of suicide attacks that have rocked Pakistan since mid-2007, including one that killed former prime minister Benazir Bhutto in December. Pakistan has yet to comment on Mehsud's move. REGROUP Media reports had quoted the Pakistani Taliban as vowing to focus attacks in Afghanistan after the peace deal. The Afghan defence ministry said a 2006 peace deal between Islamabad and the Pakistani Taliban allowed militants to regroup and organise attacks into Afghanistan from South Waziristan. "Afghanistan supports any measure that leads to the restoration of security and stability, provided such a step does not cause the expansion of further terrorism into Afghanistan," the government said in a statement about the talks. "We sincerely ask the Islamic Republic of Pakistan to not allow the terrorists to endanger the lives and security of Afghans by using its soil." More than 12,000 people have been killed in violence in Afghanistan since 2006, the bloodiest period since U.S.-led troops overthrew the Afghan Taliban government in 2001 when thousands of Taliban and hundreds of al Qaeda members fled into Pakistan. In the latest wave of violence in Afghanistan, more than 20 Taliban and one British soldier have been killed in a series of incidents in various parts of the country since Friday, officials said on Saturday. Most of the violence since 2006 has happened in southern and eastern areas near the border with Pakistan. Militants have also carried out deadly attacks in parts of Pakistan, especially since last year, but attacks have dropped since the new government was sworn in at the end of March. Cross-border attacks have strained ties between Kabul and Islamabad who have a historical dispute over the border areas. U.S.-led troops toppled the Taliban government in Afghanistan after it refused to hand over al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden, architect of the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States. More than 55,000 foreign troops under the command of NATO and the U.S. military are stationed in Afghanistan and U.S. troops have carried out a series of attacks against militant hideouts in nuclear-armed Pakistan. (Editing by Janet Lawrence)
Afghan mothers visit a health clinic in Eshkashem district of Badakhshan province, northeast of Kabul, April 23, 2008. Women die in childbirth every day in Afghanistan, a country with one of ...
