``Even though President Mohammad Khatami is attempting to give Iran a moderate image, the country finds itself confronted with a major crisis along its border that forces it to deploy its army and sound the martial rhetoric,'' said a diplomat in Tehran.

Iran is likewise obliged to reconcile two objectives: ``Affirm its regional power, which means that it must guard its borders, and demonstrate its moderate stance as acting head of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC),'' the diplomat said.

Despite their shared faith of Islam, the difference between Tehran and the Taliban is total: religious, diplomatic, military, ethnic and economic. And their simmering hostility escalated last month over allegations that the Islamic militia kidnapped 10 Iranian diplomats and a journalist when it seizedthe key Opposition stronghold of Mazir-e-Sharif in northern Afghanistan.

Iran, fuming over its missing nationals, has reportedly massed troops and weapons near the 1,000-km border with Afghanistan and on Sunday state radio warned that the country would use force to defend its ``national interests.''The cross-border tensions come as Iran continues to confront a political struggle between Islamic hardliners and reformist backers of Khatami, who took power in August last year promising more openness and fostering moves to become less isolated on the international stage. Twenty years after the Islamic revolution that ousted the pro-US Shah, Khatami's regime also seems to want to distance itself from fundamentalism and does not want to see Islamic fundamentalists, especially Sunni, encamped along its eastern border. Iran, run by Shiite clergy has always had a profound aversion to the Sunni Taliban, which it accuses of being ``narrow-minded,'' ``retrograde'' and ``damaging to the image of Islam.''

Iran alsofears the Taliban serves as a proxy to further the interests of Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the US and curtail its sphere of influence in the region.

It has been backing an alliance of anti-Taliban forces and still recognises the former government of Burhanuddin Rabbani, who was ousted by the militia from the Afghan capital Kabul two years ago.