“Initial intelligence reports led ISAF to believe he was a member of the force,” ISAF said in a statement.

KABUL: A man accused of smuggling weapons into Afghanistan was not a member of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard's elite al-Quds unit, coalition forces said Friday, withdrawing a previous claim.

The Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) had previously said the man, who was captured by US special forces Saturday, was from al-Quds, which specialises in foreign operations.

It later retracted the statement but still accused him of being involved in smuggling weapons from Iran into Kandahar, a Taliban heartland in the south of Afghanistan where fighting is among the fiercest in the country.

ISAF added that the man, who was captured in Zhari district, had direct links to Taliban leaders in the province. Its spokesman would not comment on whether he was Iranian.

“Initial intelligence reports led ISAF to believe he was a member of the force,” ISAF said in a statement.

“But after gathering more information, it was determined that while the individual may be affiliated with several insurgent-related organisations, he is not a member of the Quds group.”

Relations between Afghanistan, Iran and the United States, whose troops make up roughly two-thirds of the coalition force, are highly complex and sensitive.

Kabul insists that Iran, as a neighbouring country, has a legitimate concern in helping the reconstruction and development of Afghanistan.

But some the US are concerned that Tehran could be funding insurgents or trying to play on anti-Western sentiment in Karzai's government.

British newspaper The Times reported Friday that Iran has released a string of senior Al-Qaeda militants from custody to allow them to help the network rebuild in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border areas.

The newspaper quoted anonymous Pakistani and Middle Eastern officials accusing Iran of giving covert support to the Islamist militants, often through the Revolutionary Guards.

Earlier this year, it emerged that President Hamid Karzai's government was receiving bags of cash from Iran, prompting the US to voice concern about its potential “negative influence.”

And the commander of ISAF troops in Afghanistan, General David Petraeus, spoke last month of the “conflicted nature of Iran's policy for Afghanistan”and links to the Taliban.

“They (Tehran) would like to see the government of Afghanistan succeed... but simultaneously they are also providing a certain degree of assistance to the Taliban weapons, funding, training, equipping and so forth,” he told CNN.

Southern Afghanistan, particularly the provinces of Helmand and Kandahar, where the man was captured, is seen as the Taliban's home turf and is at the heart of the war in Afghanistan between international forces and the militants.