Iran’s President has rejected accusations that elements of his Government have supplied weapons to Taleban insurgents to destabilise international efforts to rebuild Afghanistan.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, on his first visit to Afghanistan since he took office, refuted the British and American claims. “I doubt seriously if there is any truth in it,” he told a press conference held with President Karzai of Afghanistan in Kabul. “With all our force, we support the political process in Afghanistan. For us, a secure and stable Afghanistan is the best.”

The claims have opened up a split between President Bush and Mr Karzai. During a meeting at Camp David last week Mr Karzai called Iran “a helper and a solution” to problems in Afghanistan, claiming that it was a vital ally in the fight against terrorism and drugs. Mr Bush said that he “would be very cautious about whether or not the Iranian influence there in Afghanistan is a positive force.”

Despite Mr Karzai’s claims that Mr Ahmadinejad’s Government is supporting reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan, intelligence sources in the country indicate that it is also helping to undermine Nato and American efforts.

Colonel Rahmatullah Safi, head of border police for western Afghanistan, which borders Iran, said this month: “I have to tell the truth. It is clear to everyone that Iran is supporting the enemy of Afghanistan, the Taleban.”

Afghan and international intelligence sources believe that most weaponry is filtered through a drug smuggler in the south-western province of Nimroz. The middle man is from the minority Baluch tribe and is thought to have bought weapons off the Iranian Government and sold them on to the Taleban.

The most deadly weapons that have been smuggled into Afghanistan across the porous border with Iran are Iranian-made armour-piercing explosives. The bombs have been used to deadly effect in Iraq and have recently been discovered in western Afghanistan.

Colonel Thomas Kelly, an American under the command of Nato, stopped short of blaming the Iranian Government, but said: “These are very sophisticated IEDs and they are really not manufactured in any other place to our knowledge than Iran.”

The US Government has accused Iran’s Quds force, an arm of the Revolutionary Guard, of arming and training Shia extremist groups in Iraq. The fear now is that Iran, a Shia country, has overcome its theological difference with the Sunni Taleban to fight a larger enemy.

“The Taleban are Sunni extremists and the Iranians definitely don’t want them to take control of Afghanistan again, but right now they support them as there is a bigger enemy, America. The enemy of my enemy is my friend,” said Haji Rafiq Shahir, a law professor at Herat University.

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