Kabul  - Afghan intelligence agents arrested a foreign would-be suicide bomber and his Afghan associate along with 200 kilograms of explosive packed in a vehicle in northern Afghanistan, a government spokesman said.

Hamza, 20 years old, who is from Tajikistan but was born in Pakistan and studied in an Islamic religious school in the Pakistani city of Karachi, was arrested while he was trying to enter Mazar-e-Sharif city, the capital of Balkh province, on Tuesday, Sayed Ansari, spokesman for intelligence service, told reporters on Tuesday night.

He said that his Afghan guide had also come from Pakistan and intended to carry out a terrorist attack in the province.

"The terrorists have confessed and said that they were tasked by a person called Saifullah, who is member of Al Qaeda network and now lives in North Waziristan of Pakistan," Ansari said.

More than 3,000 German soldiers are based in the northern region, including Mazar-e-Sharif city, as part of some 50,000-member NATO troop contingent in the country.

The Taliban in their newly announced operation, dubbed as Ebrat (Lesson), had warned that they would extend their activities, which have so far been heavily concentrated in the southern and eastern regions, to the relatively peaceful northern and western regions.

On April 9, a suicide attack against a German military convoy in northern Baghlan province left only the bomber dead, while a roadside attack in late March wounded three German soldiers, two of them critically.

The spokesman also said a Pakistani national was arrested in the southern Zabul province. The suspect allegedly had come to Afghanistan recently along with other three Pakistani nationals to carry out terrorist attacks inside the country.

The latest assertions by Afghan officials regarding militants entering Afghanistan from Pakistani territory have come after an attack against Afghan president Hamid Karzai last month.

Amrullah Saleh, chief of the National Directorate of Security, the Afghan intelligence service, following the attack on President Karzai said that the attack was hatched inside Pakistan.

The recent accusations have strained once again the relations between the already hostile neighbors, who often blame each other for not doing enough to clamp down on Taliban and al-Qaeda militants who are heavily entrenched in the border areas between the two countries.

Both Kabul and Islamabad are close allies of the US. (dpa)