``Iran should solve its problem with the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan in accordance with the international law,'' the supreme leader of the Taliban Mullah Mohammad Omar said over state-run radio, Shariat.

``In case the authorities of Iran are not ready to settle the issue........, the United Nations should blame Iran,'' Omar said after Iranian spiritual leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei ordered tens of thousands of his soldiers on Afghanistan's western borders to be prepared for action against the Taliban.

Meanwhile, Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has offered to act as a mediator to ease tension between Iran and the Taliban. ``Islamabad is ready to expedite this process in anyway if our Iranian and Afghan brothers wish,'' he said.

In a message to Iranian president Mohammad Khatami yesterday, Sharif urged both ``Iranand Afghanistan to take steps to end the current tension and show restraint.....as this is fundamental to the region's peace and stability as well as Islamic solidarity in the long run.''

Khamenei told the commander of the elite revolutionary guards yesterday, ``We have human, Islamic, political, and national concerns in Afghanistan....and all officials and armed forces should be prepared to protect our national interests and thwart any threat to the nation.''

However, the Taliban had retorted with a warning that they would target Iranian cities if their territory was attacked.

Tension between Iran and the Taliban has grown since the killings of Iranian diplomats in Afghanistan last month.

The United Nations is increasing pressure on the Pakistan-backed Taliban to allow a probe into the murder of the diplomats and refrain from killing Shiite Muslims in areas controlled by the militia.

Meeting late yesterday, the powerful Security Council ``strongly condemned'' the ``flagrant'' violation ofinternational law by the Taliban and demanded that it allow an immediate inquiry with full participation of the UN into the murders of the Iranian diplomats in Mazar-e-Sharif after the militia overran the city last month.

According to UN sources anti-Taliban forces have staged a series of counter attacks around Bamiyan city in central Afghanistan and have recaptured the local airstrip.

Ethnic Hazara forces staged the attacks in the southwest of Bamiyan town, putting to rest Taliban's claims that the militia had controlled the strategic Shebar pass.

The counter attacks were launched yesterday and Hazara men are still fighting at Ahangaran, about eight km from Bamiyan city, according to media reports.

However, the Taliban denied that the Iran-backed opposition forces had recaptured the local airstrip.

``There is no fighting going on in Bamiyan,'' Taliban spokesman Adbullah Hay Mudmaen told the independent Afghan Islamic Press news agency today.