NEW YORK, April 4: Taking a cue from the Afghan war the United States has started advising and encouraging a Pakistani outfit group to conduct deadly guerilla attacks inside Iran, ABC television reported on Tuesday quoting American and Pakistani intelligence sources.

The raids have resulted in the death or capture of Iranian soldiers and officials, the network reported in its evening news programme.

The ABC news reported that the group, called Jundullah, is made up of members of the Baluchi tribe and operates out of Pakistan’s Balochistan province in Pakistan, just across the border from Iran.

It has taken responsibility for the deaths and kidnappings of more than a dozen Iranian soldiers and officials, the report claimed.

Officials told the network's correspondents that the US provides no funding to the group, which would require an official presidential order or “finding” as well as congressional oversight.

Tribal sources told ABC News that money for Jundullah is funnelled to its youthful leader, Abd el Malik Regi, through Iranian exiles who have connections with European and Gulf states.

“Regi is essentially commanding a force of several hundred guerilla fighters that stage attacks across the border into Iran on Iranian military officers, Iranian intelligence officers, kidnapping them, executing them on camera,” Alexis Debat, an ABC consultant, said.

Jundullah took credit for an attack in February that killed 11 members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard riding on a bus in Zahedan.

Last month, Iranian state television broadcast what it said were confessions by those responsible for the bus attack.

The ABC news cited Pakistani sources as saying the secret campaign against

Iran was on the agenda when Vice President Dick Cheney met President Pervez Musharraf in February.

Asked about the report, a spokeswoman for Mr Cheney, Megan McGinn, said: “We don't discuss conversations between the vice president and foreign leaders.”