"The number of attacks is up significantly from the same period last year," the alliance's chief spokesman James Appathurai said. "There is not enough effectiveness in border control on Pakistan's side."

"The concerns have been communicated to Pakistan," he told reporters.

He said the level of attacks from across the border -- where Taliban fighters and Al-Qaeda militants control some of their operations -- climbed to a high in April close to figures recorded during peak fighting last summer.

"The increase is some 52 percent more than same period last year. It's very close to the August 2007 peak we have seen last year," Appathurai said.

"The main concern is the extremists regroup, rest, reconstitute and then move through the border again," he said.

The Taliban, ousted from power in Afghanistan in late 2001 for harbouring Osama bin Laden, have been using Pakistan's lawless tribal belt to stage attacks in Afghanistan.

NATO has some 47,000 troops in the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan, with the aim of spreading the rule of the central government and fostering reconstruction in the conflict-torn country.

But it has struggled to quell the tenacious insurgency.

Last month, a Pakistani Al-Qaeda warlord accused of ordering former Pakistan premier Benazir Bhutto's assassination told followers to halt attacks amid peace talks with the new government.

Pakistani officials said Wednesday that Pakistan's army had moved away from villages and towns in the volatile North West Frontier Province tribal region bordering Afghanistan as the peace talks moved forward.

As part of the process, some 30 tribesmen held in various prisons were freed Tuesday in return for the release of 55 soldiers detained by pro-Taliban militants, a senior security official said on condition of anonymity.

But Afghanistan and the United States, which is the biggest and most powerful of NATO's 26 allies, have expressed concern about any peace deal between Pakistan and Taliban fighters.

Appathurai said: "We are concerned about the effects of what's going on in Pakistan and the rising degree of incidents" in eastern Afghanistan.

ISAF's operations in that part of the country are led by the United States.

Appathurai underlined, however, that NATO was not trying to interfere in the internal affairs of Pakistan, whose President Pervez Musharraf has been a key ally in the US "war on terror".

"The bottom line is Pakistan internal activities are internal activities, but on the NATO side we are concerned about the consequences... of what's happening on the other side of the border," the spokesman said.

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