Pakistani intelligence agents are aiding the revival of Afghanistan's former ruling hardline Taliban regime over a year after they were routed from power.

The regrouping Taliban and former Afghanistan premier Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's forces are receiving logistical and financial support from members, former or current, of the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence agency, the London-based Financial Times quoted General Din Mohammed Juraat, Afghan chief of police, as saying. "They are supporting them now and they will continue to support them."

Taliban operatives are being sheltered by sympathisers in the mountainous terrain bordering Afghanistan and Pakistan and are planning attacks, the business daily said.

The extremist members of Taliban had joined forces with Hekmatyar, who has vowed to rid Afghanistan of foreign troops.

Hekmatyar, however, said he has not entered into any alliance with the Taliban to fight foreign forces in Afghanistan, the Afghan Islamic Press reported last month.

After an alliance of fundamentalist Islamic parites, the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal won control of Baluchistan and the Northwest Frontier Province in elections in November, and is now worried that the border region would become a haven for elements opposed to Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai and to the West grew, the report said.