Feb. 13 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. will not repeat past mistakes and allow extremists to take control of Afghanistan, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said, after talks with Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf on crushing the Taliban insurgency.

``We are here for the long haul,'' Gates told reporters yesterday, adding the U.S. had paid a price on Sept. 11, 2001, for neglecting Afghanistan.

NATO, Afghan and Pakistani forces must cooperate to improve security along the mountainous border between the two countries and prepare for a Taliban offensive in coming months, he added.

Afghanistan, a country of 31 million people, has experienced almost 30 years of conflict since the Soviet invasion in 1979. The Islamist Taliban regime took power after a civil war that followed the Soviet withdrawal and hosted al- Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden's terrorist training camps.

Supporters of the Taliban regime that was ousted by a U.S.- led coalition in 2001 are waging a guerrilla war against international and Afghan troops and are trying to destabilize President Hamid Karzai's government.

``After the Soviets left the United States made a mistake. We neglected Afghanistan and extremism took control of that country,'' Gates said after meeting with Musharraf in Rawalpindi, according to the Pentagon news service. ``We won't make that mistake again.''

The U.S., NATO and Afghanistan complain that Pakistan is not doing enough to secure the 2,430-kilometer (1,510-mile) border and stop insurgents arming and training in tribal areas.

Tribal Accord

Musharraf rejects such allegations. His government has deployed about 90,000 troops along the border and signed an accord with tribal leaders in Waziristan province in an effort to reduce support for the Taliban.

The agreement was supposed to allow small numbers of armed tribesmen to cross the border, the Pentagon news service said, citing an unidentified defense official traveling with Gates. Insurgents have taken advantage of the accord and are crossing the frontier in large numbers, it said.

``If we weren't concerned about what was happening along the border, I wouldn't be here,'' Gates told reporters.

Musharraf faces opposition in Pakistan, which had world's second largest Muslim population, for supporting the U.S.-led war on terrorism. He is trying to boost economic growth in tribal regions in an effort to counter Islamic extremism.

In the northwestern tribal town of Bajaur, barbers are refusing to cut off beards after pro-Taliban militants handed out leaflets saying that shaving is against Islamic law, Agence France-Presse reported.

Landmine Plan

Pakistan will continue to fence sections of the border in North West Frontier Province, the Foreign Ministry said yesterday, according to the official Associated Press of Pakistan. No decision has yet been taken on whether to lay landmines along the border, APP cited ministry spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam as saying.

Canada has offered advice on alternatives to mining the border and a Canadian team is currently in Pakistan, she added.

Gates arrived in Pakistan from Europe, where he attended a meeting of North Atlantic Treaty Organization defense ministers in Seville, Spain.

At the conference, he appealed to European allies to commit more troops to the war and called for the military burden in fighting the Taliban to be shared more fairly.

U.S., U.K., Canadian and Dutch troops are doing the bulk of the fighting in Taliban strongholds in southern Afghanistan, while countries such as Germany, France and Italy restrict most of their forces to the calmer north and west.

The Canadian Senate's National Security and Defense Committee yesterday recommended that Canada withdraw its 2,500 soldiers from Afghanistan at the end of its mission unless other countries send more soldiers and aid delivery improves.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservative Party government won a vote in the House of Commons last May to extend the Afghan mission by two years until February 2009.

To contact the reporter on this story: Ed Johnson in Sydney at ejohnson28@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: February 12, 2007 18:58 EST