``Both the Taliban militia and Pakistan are directly responsible for martyrdom of the Iranian diplomats who were kidnapped by Taliban in Mazar-e-Sharif on August 8,'' official Iranian news agency IRNA said.

``Taliban will have to pay a heavy price for this ugly act... Iran reserves the right to respond to this ugly and inhumane act by any means necessitated by its national security,'' the state-run television said in a broadcast.

``The responsibility of the massacre of Iranian diplomats directly falls on Taliban and the Pakistan government which had assured Iran of the safety of the diplomats working in the consulate before Talibans overran Mazar-e-Sharif,'' the agency said.

Tehran's second phase of military exercise named Zulfiqar-IIcomes after its first exercise along the border last week amidst apprehensions that it was planning to attack Afghanistan over the missing diplomats issue.

The UN Security Council condemned the ``heinous act'' and demanded an ``urgent'' inquiry into the circumstances that led to the killings.

After urgent unscheduled consultations last night, the Council's current president Hans Dahlgren asked the Taliban to ensure safe release of the two remaining diplomats still believed to be under their custody.

The Iranian foreign ministry asked the Taliban to transfer the bodies to Iran, arrest and bring to trial those responsible for the killings and immediately free all the Iranian captives who were involved in humanitarian activities in providing relief to the war-stricken people in Afghanistan.

The Taliban yesterday confirmed the killings by its young fighters without the authority of the top leadership.

``We have recovered nine bodies of the missing Iranians from graves outside Mazar-e-Sharif. They wereburied along with the fighters of the opposition killed in fighting for the control of the city,'' Taliban spokesman Maulvi Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil said in a statement.

Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Sayyed Ali Khameini issued a message of condolence and declared a three-day national mourning.

Iranian president Mohammad Khatami, meanwhile met ousted Afghan president Burhanuddin Rabbani, and told him that ``the instability in Afghanistan was a threat on our borders, to our national security, whose defence is our right.''

Reports from Kandahar, the Taliban's headquarters, said, ``the Taliban top leadership was not consulted before the killings of the Iranians.''

The Taliban leadership has asked the UN to mediate on the ticklish issue.

However, the UN does not recognise the Taliban government in Kabul and still considers Rabbani the official head of the country.

Tehran had earlier accused the Taliban of holding ten Iranian diplomats and one IRNA journalist, after storming the Iranian consulate inMazar-e-Sharif.

The fate of the two Iranian personnel is not yet known.

At the same time reports from Afghanistan said the Taliban had launched a three-pronged attack on the Shiite dominated Bamiyan district and was barely 40 km away from the capital of the province.

Pak dismisses Iran's accusations

``Pakistan cannot accept this accusation as it cannot be held responsible or accountable for the events in a third country,'' a foreign ministry statement said here.

On the other hand Iranian deputy foreign minister, Mohsin Aminzadeh, said in Tehran that the two remaining diplomats are still alive since they had escaped when the Talibans stormed into the Iranian consulate in Mazar-e-Sharif on August 8.