The Independent newspaper quoted an ex-senior Pakistani official as saying: "The US provided the weapons and the know-how, the Saudis provided the funds and we provided the training camps... for the Islamic legions in the early 1980s and then for the Taliban."

The Independent said it was quoting from a report by Saudi student Nawaf Obaid originally for Havard's John F Kennedy School of Government in the United States but now seconded by the US State Department.

The report -- "Improving US Intelligence Analysis on the Saudi Arabian Decision Making Process" -- also criticised US ignorance in the region.

It concludes: "US analysts have underestimated, overlooked or misunderstood the nature, strength and goals of the Wahhabi movement in Saudi Arabia, as well as the extent to which the secular leaders are beholden to this group."

Wahhabiism is a puristIslamic faith expounded by Mohammed bin Adbul Wahab which is followed by the religious police, the Mutaween, who founded the Taliban's Ministry for Propagation of Virtue and Suppression of Vice.

Had US intelligence operatives "had a deeper understanding of the religious situation in Saudi Arabia", says Obaid, they might have been able to prevent the 1996 bombing at Dharan, which killed 19 Americans.

The Independent said Obaid toured remote conservative Saudi villages last year preparing his report and quoted Saudi government officials, army officers and members of the Saudi National Guard.

He wrote: "According to a high ranking official in the Saudi ministry of Justice, Sheikh Mohammed bin Jubier (current chairman of the Saudi Consultative Council), who has been called the `exporter' of the Wahhabi creed in the Moslem world, was a strong advocate of aiding the Taliban."

Obaid also notes that after the US armed the Afghan militias which became the Taliban, the Taliban then called for US troopsto withdraw from Saudi Arabia, where they have been stationed since 1990 after Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait.

"This is the same call made by Wahhabi fundamentalists in the Kingdom (of Saudi Arabia) before the Riyadh and Dharan bombings," he wrote.

"And if bin Laden actually was behind these attacks, there is even more reason to fear Taliban-inspired terrorism."

Bin Laden, a Saudi based in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, has been fingered as the man behind last month's two bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, which killed more than 250 and left thousands injured.

The bombings provoked retaliatory cruise missile strikes by the United States on targets in Afghanistan and Sudan which Washington said were associated with bin Laden.