Hekmatyar, a former Afghan Prime Minister who was supported by the American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), financed by Saudi Arabia and backed by the Islamic Republic of Iran, was expelled from his posh hideout in the Iranian capital soon after the American military intervention if Afghanistan on October 2001, which brought the collapse of the Taleban rule in Kabol and the dismemberment of al-Qa’eda bases and networks in the war-shattered nation.

"We are together", Hekmatyar said in the message, referring to the Taleban and al-Qa’eda, the Islamist-terrorist organisation believed to have organised the attacks of 11 September 2001 against the twin towers of World Trade Center in New York and the Defence Minister in Washington D.C.

European intelligence sources say Hekmatyar's operatives have purchased vehicles that they believe may be used for bomb attacks in Afghanistan to try to destabilise the government of the American-installed Hamed Karzai.

In fact, the Taleban had expelled the renegade Hekmatyar from Afghanistan after they captured Kabol in 1996.

Intelligence and military sources said U.S. Special Forces are combing the rugged mountain peaks looking for fugitive al-Qa’eda fighters as well as Hekmatyar's followers, who are believed to be living there in significant numbers.

Special forces in Kunar have come under regular rocket attacks, many of them believed to be staged by Hekmatyar's men, they added.

On Monday, Afghan military officials had announced that some al-Qa’eda fighters were still operating in the snow covered Tora Bora Mountains, the scene of heavy American bombardment in the final phase of American operations aimed at dismembering the terrorist organisation and capture its leader, Osama Ben Laden.

Brigadier General Mohammad Mostafa of the Brigade 14 of Nangarhar Troop, told the reporters in a press conference that his forces have recently traced and confiscated two trucks loaded with arms and ammunition heading for the Tora Bora heights, carrying 200 heavy land to land rockets as well as lots of arms and ammunition to be delivered to al-Qa’eda and Taleban militants hidden in the mountains caves.

"Hezb Islami will continue jehad until foreign troops are gone from Afghanistan and Afghans have set up an Islamic government", Hekmatyar said, adding that he consider it "a great mistake to think of ways other than jehad" to get foreigners out of Afghanistan.

In recent days international forces in Kabol and elsewhere throughout Afghanistan have come under increasingly fire. Barely two weeks ago Afghan and Pakistani sources told the Associated Press that suicide squads were being trained in neighbouring Pakistan.

The nephew of Maulvi Abdol Kabir, once the No. 3 man in the Taleban, said the training camps were in Pakistan's Bajour region, bordering Kunar province, and in the Mansehra area, also in the deeply conservative and religious North West Frontier Province.