SPIN BOLDAK - Afghanistan's beleaguered Taliban said on Wednesday they would defend the southern provinces still under their control and had no relationship or communication with militant fugitive Osama bin Laden.

Asked whether bin Laden was still a guest of the Taliban, Tayab Agha, spokesman Taliban supreme leader Mullah Mohammad Omar, told a news conference: "There is no relation right now, there is no communication."

He said the Taliban did not know where bin Laden was.

"We have no idea where he is because our areas are limited now to three or four provinces so we do not know where he is," Agha said in the Afghan border town of Spin Boldak.

The Taliban have been driven out of much of Afghanistan but still hold territory in the south around Kandahar, and in the north in the besieged enclave of Kunduz.

"Our forces are well-disciplined and they know the programme and they have decided to defend the presently controlled provinces," he said.

The spokesman said Mullah Omar had a "religious compulsion" to remain in Kandahar. Nampa-Reuters