A four-party commission, composed of senior commanders from Afghanistan, Pakistan, coalition forces and ISAF, held a meeting in Kabul on Wednesday to promote cooperation in fighting terrorism in this insurgent country.

The delegates included Gen. Ahsan Saleem Hayat, vice chief of Army Staff of Pakistan, Gen. Bismullah Khan Mohammedi, chief of staff of the Afghan National Army, Lt. Gen. Karl Eikenberry, top commander of the US-led coalition forces, and Lt. Gen. David Richards, top commander of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), coalition forces said in a statement.

The meeting, which is the 18th of the kind, consisted of several briefings to update the participants on issues of mutual interest.

The Border Security Subcommittee elaborated how to better coordinate security operations along the border area between southern, eastern Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Afghan and Pakistani militaries have improved their ability to conduct operations against their common enemy through better communication by using a geo-spatial database and high frequency radios, provided by the United States.

The delegates also agreed to a proposal to conduct coordinated patrols by the Afghan army, Pakistani troops, as well as coalition forces and ISAF based in Afghanistan on their respective sides of the border.

The Military Intelligence-Sharing Working Group discussed the use of secure mobile telephones for intelligence coordination between the troops of the four sides.

Coalition forces' Counter-Improvised Explosive Devices (IED) Working Group reviewed the progress on developing a common database to aid the fight against IEDs.

Meanwhile, ISAF representatives briefed their plan for its expansion into eastern Afghanistan late this year.

The four-party commission will meet again in October in Afghanistan.

ISAF, which has about 21,000 troops, now takes charge of security in northern, western, central and southern Afghanistan, while coalition troops are mainly deployed in eastern Afghanistan to hunt down militants there.

ISAF air raid killed 11 Taliban insurgents in the neighboring Kandahar province on Tuesday night.

Afghanistan is suffering from a rise of Taliban-linked terrorism and violence this year, during which over 1,800 people, mostly Taliban insurgents, have been killed.

(Xinhua News Agency August 24, 2006)