CANBERRA, July 30 (Reuters) - Australia might offer military advisers to Pakistan to help train security forces to fight Taliban and al Qaeda militants sheltering in the country, reports said on Wednesday.

Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon would on Wednesday call in a televised speech for an international effort to combat Taliban insurgents based in Pakistan's tribal border areas, including economic and military aid, the Australian newspaper said.

"The international community cannot sit back and allow Pakistan to become the new breeding ground for al Qaeda and Jemaah Islamiah," Fitzgibbon would say in his speech, according to the newspaper.

The minister, who this month said he was "pessimistic" about the security situation in Afghanistan, where Australia has 1,080 troops, would call for NATO and its allies to "arm the Pakistani army with the skills and means to conduct counter-insurgency operations and civil operations".

"We won't make good progress in Afghanistan while ever the tribal regions grow as a breeding ground for insurgents who so easily cross that porous border," Fitzgibbon told the paper.

Southeast Asia-based militant group Jemaah Islamiah has been linked to a series of bombings in Indonesia, including blasts on the holiday island of Bali between 2002 and 2005 in which 92 Australians died.

A number of its leaders are believed to have been trained by al Qaeda in Afghanistan.

Relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan have sharply deteriorated in recent months.

Afghan officials repeatedly accusing Pakistani agents of secretly backing Taliban insurgents fighting Afghan and foreign troops.

Pakistan's new civilian government has launched talks with militants in its tribal border region to defuse violence that has killed hundreds of Pakistanis in the past year.

But Afghan and NATO leaders say the talks have eased pressure on the militants, allowing them to send more insurgents into Afghanistan where attacks along the eastern border are up by about 40 percent this year.

The United States is preparing to bolster troop numbers in Afghanistan with two extra combat brigades and Fitzgibbon said the Afghan army must grow beyond its planned 80,000 strength to guarantee security.

Pakistani Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani, visiting the United States, said he sought to reassure President George W. Bush of his government's commitment to secure the border with Afghanistan.

"We talked about the need for us to make sure that the Afghan border is secure as best as possible," Bush told reporters after the White House talks. "Pakistan has made a very strong commitment to that."

The Afghan government welcomed Bush's comments. (Reporting by Rob Taylor; Additional reporting by Paul Eckert in Washington; Editing by David Fogarty)

AlertNet news is provided by