"The past week was the highest level of security incidents in Afghanistan's post-liberation history," General David Petraeus said in a speech here, referring to the Taliban's ouster from power in late 2001.

Figures for incidents in Afghanistan for the first week of June were not immediately available.

From January to May, insurgent attacks in Afghanistan were up by 59 percent from the same period a year earlier, NATO data show.

"There is no question that the situation has deteriorated over the course of the past two years and that there are difficult times ahead," said Petraeus, who heads the US Central Command.

"There are some tough months ahead," he added, saying that the levels of violence would rise in part "because we are going to go after their sanctuaries and safe havens as we must."

Since taking office, President Barack Obama has reoriented the US military focus from Iraq to Afghanistan and ordered the deployment an additional 21,000 troops to the Afghan theater.

US troop strength in Afghanistan should hit 68,000 by this fall, Petraeus said. There are an additional 33,000 allied troops under US and NATO commands.

Petraeus also said he believed that the Afghan security forces -- planned to reach 232,000 by 2012 -- may not be large enough.

Afghan Foreign Minister Rangin Dadfar Spanta expressed the same doubts on Tuesday to German reporters, saying that he would like the number of Afghan soldiers and police to reach 400,000, compared to the current force of 160,000.

Petraeus also congratulated Pakistan for its offensive against Taliban insurgents in the Swat valley, close to the border with Afghanistan.

"These have been quite impressive operations and I think Pakistan deserves some significant credit for it," Petraeus said.

"There is no question at this point that the Pakistanis see very clearly the existential threat that is posed to their country by the extremists, particularly by the Pakistani Taliban," he said.

The United States is not providing direct military assistance to Islamabad for those operations, but it is offering financial and material assistance, including four MI-17 cargo helicopters delivered Wednesday, Petraeus said.

At a separate event, the commandant of the US Marine Corps, General James Conway, said he expected Pakistan's Swat valley offensive to cut off Taliban fighters from Afghanistan.

"I am encouraged that this safe haven could be blown away and that this line of men and equipment crossing from Pakistan could be disrupted to say the least and eventually closed," Conway said at the National Press Club in Washington.

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