TALEBAN forces are regrouping on the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan to mount attacks on American troops, encouraged by hardline Pakistani groups and Islamic officials who have gained power in recent elections.

A marked increase in rebel activities in southwestern Afghanistan in recent months has already caused concern in Kabul. The biggest battle between the Taleban and US forces took place close to the border and followed guerrilla attacks on foreign aid workers.

Taleban leaders are said to be re-emerging from hiding and young recruits are again being indoctrinated in the schools where the movement began its thrust for power.

One of the Afghans waiting to rejoin the fighting is Abdul Hadi. He fled his home in Afghanistan’s southern Helmand province soon after US-led coalition forces routed the Taleban regime.

The thickly bearded former Islamic fighter is spending time at a madrassa (Islamic seminary) in the Pakistani border town of Chaman. “I am waiting for a call to join jihad against the unIslamic regime,” he said.

Mr Hadi is among thousands of Taleban supporters who have found a haven in 300 madrassas spread around the border region. Many are battle-hardened; others are potential recruits for rebels fighting the US-backed Afghan Government. “They all want to go back and fight to re-establish the Taleban control over Afghanistan,” said Hafiz Allauddin, a Pakistani seminary teacher who fought with the Taleban.

These are the same seminaries from which the Taleban force was raised before it stormed Kandahar and swept through southwestern Afghanistan in 1994. Run by hardline Pakistani Islamic groups that are part of the coalition government in western Baluchistan province, they not only provide Taleban ideological training but also material help.

More than 8,000 new pupils have enrolled in the seminaries in the border areas alone. “There is a constant stream of them. It is hard to find accommodation for the newcomers,” Hafiz Hameedullah, head of a seminary in Chaman, said.

Pashtunabad, a congested slum district in Quetta, the provincial capital, also has a large concentration of former Taleban activists. A stronghold of radical Islamic groups, it now looks like a Kandahar neighbourhood under the former Taleban regime. Several former Taleban leaders are believed to have taken refuge there.

But it is Chaman, a dusty border town in Baluchistan province, that has become the main base for resurgent Taleban, who have stepped up attacks on the US and Afghan troops. Afghan authorities say that the rebel fighters escape to Pakistan after conducting guerrilla attacks.

Afghan officials said that the upsurge in rebel attacks showed that the Taleban were reorgansing and reviving their command structure. There is little to stop them.

Poorly trained and unpaid for months, the Afghan government soldiers find it hard to counter the revitalised rebel bands. Despite increased patrols by American troops, cross-border guerrilla movement has not stopped.

Many Taleban leaders who went into hiding after the fall of their government have now resurfaced. Mullah Dadullah, a powerful former Taleban commander, and Mullah Hasan Rehmani, a former governor of Kandahar, often call Pakistani journalists by satellite phone. Afghan officials claim that it was Dadullah who ordered the execution of Ricardo Manguia, a Red Cross worker, two months ago.

Some reports suggest that the two most wanted Taleban leaders are heading operations against US and Afghan government forces in southern Kandahar, Zabul and Helmand provinces. Mullah Abdul Rahim, a former commander, has become a legend among Taleban supporters after his men survived a fierce American bombing on their mountain hideouts around the Afghan border town of Spinboldak. He is often seen in Chaman with his Pakistani and Afghan supporters.

Mullah Akhtar Osmani, a former Taleban corps commander wanted by the Afghan Government, is also believed to be active in the region. President Karzai, during his visit to Islamabad last month, asked Pakistani authorities to extradite Mullah Osmani and three other former Taleban commanders.

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