KABUL: Afghanistan's intelligence service said on Saturday it has given Pakistan hard evidence that former Afghan president Burhanuddin Rabbani's assassination was planned in the southern outskirts of the Pakistani city of Quetta where key Taliban leaders are based.

The Taliban have not claimed responsibility for killing Rabbani, who headed the Afghan government's effort to broker peace with the insurgents. A suicide bomber claiming to be a peace emissary from the Taliban killed Rabbani at the former president's home on Sept 20 by detonating a bomb hidden in his turban. Rabbani's death was a major setback to US-backed efforts to broker peace with insurgents and end the nearly decade-long war.

On the sidelines of the UN General Assembly meeting in ghan intelligence official said Rabbani's death was plotted for four months by the Afghan Taliban's governing council known as the Quetta Shura.

Lutifullah Mashal, a spokesman for the Afghan intelligence service, provided the first details about where the assassination was allegedly planned at a news conference on Saturday.

"The place where Professor Rabbani's killing was planned is a town called Satellite near Quetta, Pakistan," Mashal said. "The key person involved in the assassination of Rabbani has been arrested and he has provided lots of strong evidence about where and how it was planned. We have given all that evidence to the Pakistan embassy."

The Afghan intelligence documents handed over to Pakistan's embassy in Kabul include the address, photographs and a layout of a house in Satellite, Mashal said. He said the Pakistanis also have been provided with the names of individuals who discussed Rabbani's assassination in Satellite. Mashal would not disclose the identity of the person in custody. He said additional details soon would be released by a commission set up to investigate Rabbani's death.