Kabul, Afghanistan ? NATO will double the number of soldiers in southern Afghanistan when it takes over security there from U.S. troops next month, seeking to quash the worst rebel violence since the Taliban’s ouster, the NATO force commander said Sunday.

Lt. Gen. David Richards also said NATO troops would be more “people friendly” in an effort to win the support of the local population amid rising resentment over what many Afghans see as overly aggressive tactics by the separate U.S.-led coalition force.

There was no letup in the fighting in the south, meanwhile. More than two dozen people died in weekend violence, including four in a failed attempt to blow up the governor of Kandahar province, the birthplace of the Taliban religious militia.

The British Defense Ministry said Sunday that five suspected Taliban militants had been killed and two detained by British troops during a “cordon and search operation” in southern Afghanistan. The ministry said no British troops were injured but offered no other details of the operation, including when it occurred.

At a news conference in Kabul, Richards said the number of troops that the U.S.-led coalition had in southern Afghanistan hadn’t been sufficient to deal with the surge in violence.

“They have been relatively short of troops, of boots on the ground,” said Richards, a British soldier who assumed command of NATO’s International Security Assistance Force a month ago.

He said the number of troops in the region would increase from an average of about 3,000 in recent years to about 6,000 when NATO takes on responsibility for the volatile region in July. He said the new force also would have more attack helicopters.

The changeover comes amid the most intense fighting in the south since a U.S.-led offensive toppled the Islamic hard-liners of the Taliban at the end of 2001. More than 400 people, mostly militants, have been killed since mid-May.

Observers in the south say support for foreign troops has waned in recent months, partly because of a large number of civilians killed mistakenly in coalition operations and because of the increased presence of Taliban rebels.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai repeatedly has complained about what he considers the coalition’s overly aggressive tactics and last year demanded an end to airstrikes and house searches.