"The large-scale Ashoura-3 military exercises in the northeast will begin tomorrow morning with the use of 70,000 troops in the general area of Torbat-e-Jam," the television said.

The air and ground war games, covering an area of 600 square km, would test recently acquired modern weapons and equipment, it said. Torbat-e-Jam is about 60 km from the Afghan border.

The television did not say how many days the exercises would last but some newspapers said it would be three days.

Meanwhile, the stand-off between the ultra-Islamic group Taliban and Iran over Iranian hostages entered another phase with the Taliban saying that they will release Iranian hostages at an ``appropriate time''.

The official Iranian news agency IRNA, reporting from Dubai quoted Mullah Hassan Qalcheie, a close aide of Taliban leader Mulla Mohammad Omar Taliban as saying:``Taliban will show its good will for improvement of relations with Iran by setting free the Iranian hostages at an appropriate time.'' He declined to say when they would be freed.

Referring to the Iranian diplomats and IRNA reporter, he said that they are kept in a safe place near Qandahar, southern Afghanistan, and taken care of by senior Taliban commander Mulla Raketi. This was the first time that Taliban acknowledged the detainment of the eleven diplomats and IRNA correspondent Mahmud Saremi, who were taken hostage on august eight when the group captured the northern Afghan city of Mazar-e-Sharif.

``The IRNA correspondent was ill and later underwent medical treatment by a physician dispatched by Taliban to the prison and is now in a good condition,'' Qalcheie told IRNA.

Earlier, Afghanistan's Taliban authorities invited the United Nations to mediate in the controversy over the Iranians, whom Teheran says were taken hostage after the Taliban captured the northern town ofMazar-e-Sharif.

Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press (AIP) news agency quoted a Taliban spokesman, Mulla Wakil Ahmed, as saying that although the UN had failed in its responsibilities towards Afghanistan, the Taliban would still want it to play its role in resolving the dispute.

Meanwhile, US President Bill Clinton has used a conference on religion and peace to strike out at terrorists using Islam to justify their attacks. In a message to the Bucharest International ecumenical conference on "Men and Religions", Clinton said: "some have tried to justify terrorist attacks on American interests as part of jihad "But hundreds of millions of Muslims oppose terrorism and deplore the twisting of their religious trackings into justification of inhumane, indeed, ungodly, acts."

Bhutto fears US-like strikes by Iran

ISLAMABAD: In a related development Pakistan Opposition leader Benazir Bhutto called on the government to give Afghanistan's Taliban 48 hours to free missing Iranian diplomats,reports from Islamabad said.

Benazir Bhutto said Pakistan should sever relations with the Taliban if its leaders refused to release the 10 Iranians. ``Give the Taliban 48 hours and tell them that unless they produce the Iranian diplomats, we will break off ties with them," The News daily quoted Bhutto as saying during a speech here yesterday in the National Assembly. Iran had always stood by Pakistan and provided it with strategic depth, Benazir is reported to have said.

"Any attack on our friends is an attack on us," the former premier said. The paper quoted her as saying that the possibility of Iranians carrying out military retaliation similar to that launched by the US on Afghanistan cannot be ruled out.