PARIS: Members of Osama bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda network may have returned to Afghanistan en masse to bolster Taliban militants fighting US and Afghan forces in the east and south of the country, officials and analysts say.

Although no one has come forward with any hard proof, evidence seems to indicate that hardline Al-Qaeda fighters have gone back to the country that was their home base for years until US-led forces toppled the Taliban in late 2001.

The governor of the southern Afghan province of Kandahar, Gul Agha Shirzai, said after a deadly suicide attack at a mosque last month that police "found documents on the (bomber’s) body that showed he was an Arab".

He told reporters that this proved that "Arab Al-Qaeda teams had entered Afghanistan and had planned terrorist attacks".

Afghan Defense Minister Abdur Rahim Wardak on Monday told the New York Times: "There is a regrouping of Al-Qaeda, and it seems they are going to pay more attention to Afghanistan. We are running into foreign fighters here and there."

And Afghan Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah said on a visit to India this week that the Taliban had become "numerically stronger" and that the likely explanation was that they were getting "outside support".

The head of the UN mission in Afghanistan, France’s Jean Arnault, warned the UN Security Council in late June that the security situation in the country was worsening.

Arnault told the council that the Taliban rebels seem to have "more funding, more deadly weaponry, more powerful media for propaganda and more aggressive, cruel and indiscriminate tactics".

Since the start of the year, attacks committed by Taliban militants have resulted in nearly 600 deaths, as opposed to 850 deaths in similar attacks for all of 2004, according to an AFP tally.

Michael Scheuer, who headed up the CIA’s special "bin Laden unit" from 1996 to 1999, sees nothing shocking in the recent reports of an increased Al-Qaeda presence in Afghanistan.

"The recent attacks fit bin Laden’s strategic goal of ensuring ‘the pious Caliphate will start from Afghanistan’," accords to Scheuer.

"Consistent with Al-Qaeda’s tactical doctrine for aiding Islamist insurgencies, Taliban leaders are taking the lead in discussing and claiming credit for the increased violence.

"Al-Qaeda’s doctrine is clear: Support the insurgents fully and offer advice, but stay in the background, do not dictate, and allow local leaders to run operations as they see fit," Scheuer said.

In certain remote regions of Afghanistan, US and Afghan forces routinely encounter concentrations of hardened militants, sparking long hours of combat.