"According to reports received from the Foreign Affairs Ministry, we do not have any military presence in Afghanistan", Mr. Ramezanzadeh told reporters in Tehran, in response to claims made by Mr. Ezzatollah Vasefi, an Afghan politician based in Qandahar.

According to Mr. Vasefi, who said he had been involved in tracking the Iranian activities in Afghanistan, the arrested Iranians included three border guards and five members of the Revolutionary Guards, under the command of a high-ranking officer whom he identified as General Razavi.

He said three Afghans serving as the Iranians' guides also were apprehended in the operation, which he described as a trap set by a militia commander in Shindand, in Herat province 105 miles east of the Iranian border.

In Washington, Ms. Condoleezza Rice, President Bush's national security advisor, said some people who "have some relationship to Iran" had been taken into custody and were being debriefed.

But a U.S. military official confirmed Friday that an Iranian group was being held and interviewed at Qandahar's airport.

This is not the first time that officials in Iran rejects and deny information by American and Afghan sources about the presence in Afghanistan of Iranian professional saboteurs and trouble-makers, distributing arms and money to local commanders, particularly in the Heart province, in order to create difficulties for the American military presence.

The same, Tehran would deny and reject as "baseless" American claims that terrorists from Al-Qa’eda and the defeated Taleban regime had fled to Iran.

Warmed up slightly after the visit of the interim Premier Hamed Karzai to Tehran last month, relations between Iran and Afghanistan suffered some setback after the leader-controlled Iranian Television reported huge explosion in front of the American Embassy in Kabol.

Meanwhile, local Poshtoon commanders warned interim Defence Minister General Mohammad Qasem Fahim to immediately call backs Tajik-based soldiers sent to Paktia to help American troops fighting Al-Qa’eda and Taleban in the region of Gardez, informed sources reported.

"Either you immediately withdrew these forces, or we shall fight them back", Poshtoon commanders from Paktia have urged General Fahim.

"We take this opportunity that the issue of Paktia be purely left to the people of Paktia", commander Mohammad Esma'il told reporters on Sunday, referring to the province where the battle is taking place. Gardez is the provincial capital.

The warning was seen as a blow to the interim government of Mr. Hamed Karzai, who is currently on visit in Moscow.

"This show the urgent need for the creation of a national army made of all Afghan tribes and ethnics", an Afghan analyst said.

Fahim has dispatched an emissary to talk to Poshtoons, reminding them of the necessity for all Afghans to unite against the common Al Qa’eda and Taleban enemy.

Karzai landed late Monday in Moscow at the invitation of the Russian President Vladimir Putin.