He was referring to Mr. Yoones Qanooni, the Head of the Alliance’s delegation at the Afghan talks in Germany, who had warned that in case Mr. Rabbani refused to endorse the list of the personalities accepted by the four delegations present at the talks to form an interim government, he would do it alone.

Mr. Rabbani’s declaration came as delegates representing the dominant Northern Alliance, the "Rome Process", the Iran-backed "Cyprus Group" and the Pakistan-supported "Peshawar Group" had almost reached an "in principle" agreement of the plans submitted to them by Mr. Lakhdar Brahimi, the United Nations Special Envoy for Afghanistan for naming an interim authority and a Council for their nation.

"We are now talking with Kabol, warning the Ostad (professor Rabani) that if he continues to undermine our position here, he might loose his hat", the delegate said, adding that they were working toward concluding an agreement by tomorrow" (Sunday).

Rabbani cast a shadow over the talks by saying he preferred to hold elections in two months rather than the two years envisaged by Mr. Brahimi. He also questioned the role planned for the exiled former Monarch Mohammad Zaher Shah, who has been proposed, and accepted by negotiators in Bonn talks, as symbolic head of the transition government.

He also said he wanted only 200 foreign peacekeepers in Afghanistan -- far fewer than many believe is necessary to restore order in the country after 23 years of war.

However, the Islamic Government of Afghanistan's Leadership Council met in Kabol Saturday to discuss the decisions made at the Bonn conference, but ended with no sign of a breakthrough, the Iranian official news agency IRNA reported.

"The leadership exchanged viewpoints on the future leader of the council as well as the list of representatives from the Islamic government to the council", Mr. Qorbanali Erfani, a member of the Rabbani-led Northern Alliance told the Agency.

Erfani said the Islamic Government agreed with the rotary leadership of the council, but could not reach a compromise on the list of the would-be representatives to the council.

"This is a slap for Iran, as the proposal for rotary leadership not only means that Rabbani has been dropped as Head of State, but that the Northern Alliance has no objection to a role for Zaher Shah", an Afghan expert told Iran Press Service.

"If no consensus is reached about Zaher Shah, then, Hamed Karzai could be considered as an outsider", one delegate from the Iran-backed "Cyprus Group" said, referring to the Poshtoon Commander who is now positioned near Qandahar, the Taleban’s last stronghold, trying to arrange a bloodless surrender of the city.

But as the UN refused to give the Alliance delegates in Bonn more time, Qanooni, backed by Dr. Abdollah and General Mohammad Qasem Fahim, respectively the Foreign and Defence ministers of the movement, said he might go past Rabbani and appeal directly to provincial commanders across the country to provide the candidates.

Late on Saturday, an Alliance member said Rabbani had finally agreed to forward a list of candidates, allowing the talks to go forward.

Qanooni told Mr. Mehrdad Balali, an Iranian journalist covering the Bonn talks for the British news agency Reuters that he would seek popular support for a deal if Rabbani, who the United Nations still recognises as president of Afghanistan, did not provide a list of names to be appointed to the interim government discussed at the talks.

"Anything is possible at the moment'', said Mr. Ahmad Fawzi, the UN’s spokesman, cancelling his daily briefing for journalists until Sunday morning, as hectic meetings were held between the parties and the UN diplomats, including Brahimi and his Spanish deputy, Francesc Vendrell.

Iran was not the only party to torpedo the Bonn talks. Efforts to derail negotiations had started with Pakistan when Haji Abdol Qadir, a senior Pashtoon member of the Northern Alliance delegation at the talks had walked out, protesting that the Pashtoons, Afghanistan's largest ethnic group, was not adequately represented in the proposed mechanism of government.

Abdol Qadir is the brother Commandant Abdol Haq, a former CIA and Pakistan’s ISI operative who travelled secretly to Afghanistan days before the fall of Kabol, reportedly in instigation from ISI, to rally Taleban commanders, but was caught by the Taleban and executed.

Before the start of the talks on Tuesday, senior UN diplomats had called on both Iran and Pakistan against creating difficulties for the negotiators, warning them "not to repeat past mistakes".

Germany’s Foreign Minister, Joschka Fischer, who hosted the talks, talked with his Iranian counterpart on Saturday, discussing with him the tense situation created in Petersberg following Mr. Rabbani’s bombshell.

The third political "rocket" fired at the Petersberg talks was fired by Washington, when the White House announced that the "time was not right" for deployment of a multinational peacekeeping force in Afghanistan.

The deployment of such a force is one of the five-points plans that Mr. Brahimi had proposed to the delegates at Bonn talks.

"The question is why Washington did not announce its opposition to the creation of peacekeeping force earlier and waited until the delegates reached an agreement on that issue? Asked one observer at the talks.