WASHINGTON, April 26: Pro-Taliban forces have increased their attacks on US forces and their Afghan allies before a scheduled visit by Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld on Sunday.

The media have reported at least half a dozen hit-and-run attacks on the US and Afghan forces in eastern and southern Afghanistan this week.

One US soldier died on Saturday of wounds sustained during an earlier fight, the Centcom announced.

The latest casualty brings the total of US soldiers killed in Friday’s encounter with Taliban suspects to two.

Four soldiers were also injured when they were ambushed while inspecting a site in Paktia province near the Pakistan border. The site was used for a previous rocket attack on US and Afghan forces.

Both the soldiers were from the 82nd Airborne Division but the Centcom was withholding their names pending next of kin notification.

One Afghan soldier was also wounded in the action.

The attack came two days before a scheduled visit to Afghanistan by Defence Secretary Mr Rumsfeld who will be holding a meeting with coalition forces at Bagram air base on Sunday.

Increase in the hit-and-run attacks and the general security situation in Afghanistan are expected to top Mr Rumsfeld’s agenda when he meets Afghan President Hamid Karzai in Kabul on Sunday.

Later, Mr Rumsfeld will visit Iraq to meet US soldiers struggling to bring normalcy to the war-torn country.

He is visiting Kabul days before a scheduled visit by Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage who is expected on May 7.

Mr Armitage, who will also visit India and Pakistan, is expected to convey Afghanistan’s concerns about increase in cross-border attacks when he arrives in Islamabad for talks with Pakistani leaders.

After a visit to Islamabad last week, the Afghan president said Pakistan had promised to do its best to stop cross-border attacks into Afghanistan.

But he also urged Pakistan leaders to do more to counter terrorism and coordinate their actions with the Afghan border forces.

The United States is providing helicopters and a fixed-wing aircraft to Pakistan to monitor the activities of the pro-Taliban and Al Qaeda forces along its long and porous border with Afghanistan.

Pakistan’s interior secretary Tasneem Noorani told Dawn that Pakistan was “totally committed” to fighting terrorism and had already arrested hundreds of suspects and turned them over to the United States. Pakistan has also stationed 70,000 additional solders along the border with Afghanistan since the Sept 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.