A Taliban spokesman has vowed the group will attack US and Pakistan forces if they do not stop hunting Taliban and al-Qaeda militants along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.
"We will carry out more attacks against international coalition forces if they continue to chase us," the spokesman, identified as Abdul Latif Hakimi, said in taped comments on Al Jazeera television.
Taliban spokesman
"The Pakistani government has betrayed us in a way that history won't forget and this is why we will launch attacks against them," said Hakimi, whose face was covered when he appeared in the broadcast.
He said Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar, whose government was ousted from power in Afghanistan by US-led forces in late 2001, was safe.
US-led forces in Afghanistan and Pakistani troops have launched new offensives on either side on the border in remote and mountainous areas in an effort to kill or capture Taliban and al Qaeda leaders, including Osama bin Laden.
Pakistani forces said they were fighting a fierce battle with up to 400 foreign militants and Pakistani tribal allies after encircling them near the Afghan border. The fighting, involving several thousand government troops against several hundred militants, is centred on an area to the west of the town of Wana that includes the village of Shin Warsak.
Officials have said the militants might include bin Laden's second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahri. The Egyptian eye surgeon is regarded as al-Qaeda's chief strategist and believed to be one of the key figures behind the September 11th, 2001, attacks on the United States.
Western intelligence sources say al-Zawahri and bin Laden stay close to each other and were thought to have been hiding in the mountainous Waziristan.
But some analysts have suggested the claim that his capture is near may be propaganda to coincide with US Secretary of State Colin Powell's surprise visit to Iraq today.
The US deputy defence secretary, Mr Paul Wolfowitz has warned against hightening expectation but has accepted that the capture of Dr al-Zawahri would be "huge".
Afghanistan has sent hundreds of extra troops to its border with Pakistan to prevent any al-Qaeda militants from fleeing.
The Afghan troops were sent in to supplement those already operating alongside thousands of US-led troops taking part in a major anti-militant operation across southern and eastern Afghanistan code-named "Mountain Storm".