The Sunday Times found Taliban commanders and their fighters recuperating in the Pakistani city of Quetta last week and moving freely around parts of the city.
"In the northern suburb of Pashtunabad, more than 30 Taliban were recovering from the bloodiest fighting in Afghanistan since their regime was ousted," the report said.
Dressed in neatly pressed robes with the black turbans and kohi-rimmed eyes typical of the Taliban, they lounged on cushions, sipping green tea and sucking at boiled sweets while laughing at NATO reports that they have sustained heavy casualties.
"Fighting the British is as easy as eating a loaf of bread from my hand. Fighting the British is much easier than the Americans. They have no faith," a young Taliban commander who had been shot in the calf last month while fighting British troops in Gereshk, a town in the Afghan province of Helmand, and who returned to Quetta to be treated, said.
The proof that Taliban are using Quetta for rest and recuperation -- if not also for training as widely suspected -- is embarrassing for President Pervez Musharraf, it said.
The Pakistani President has long denied claims from the Afghan government that his military intelligence is providing support and safe havens for the Taliban.
Musharraf was outraged when Afghan President Hamid Karzai went to Islamabad in February 2005 and presented him with a list of names, addresses and telephone numbers in Quetta of Taliban leaders, including Mullah Omar, the head of the movement.
Dismissing this as "nonsense", the Pakistani President accused Karzai of being "totally oblivious of what is happening in his own country".
The British foreign office said concerns about Pakistan's position were among the main reasons for Prime Minister Tony Blair's trip to Islamabad on Sunday -- his third since the September 11 attacks turned Musharraf from a pariah into a key ally.
"We fully understand the tight-rope that Musharraf is walking between extremists and helping the west. We know he is fighting a number of insurgencies within his own borders. But he too has said he is concerned about growing Talibanisation in his own country and our message is we want to help," the spokesman said.
In the safe house in Quetta, several regional commanders were present and confirmed they used Quetta to relax and study out of reach of NATO. Although the men said they were regularly "shaken down" by the police, a bribe of as little as 2 pounds usually resolved the issue.
The report quoted one Mullah Samat as saying that he was from a group of 300 fighters and insisted that only 10 per cent were hardcore Taliban, educated in madrassas in Pakistan, while the rest were villagers, disillusioned with the Karzai government.
He denied foreigners were involved and claimed an Afghan businessman supported them by setting up a hospital to treat the fighters.
