WASHINGTON, May 13: US authorities believe a jailed postal employee may have helped provide a letter of introduction to two men who posed as journalists before assassinating Afghan opposition leader Ahmad Shah Masood last year, according to a newspaper report on Monday.

The Washington Post said the alleged role of Ahmed Abdel Sattar, 42, in the murder was unearthed in hundreds of hours of wiretaps, detailing what an unnamed US official said were contacts with an Egyptian group.

Yasser al-Siri, an Egyptian who the paper said allegedly helped to draft the letter with Sattar, has been charged in London with complicity in the Masood murder.

“It’s clear that this was a letter for these two guys,” said the official, described by the Post as being familiar with the case.

Sattar is being held in a maximum-security jail in New York.