BERLIN -- Afghan police have discovered a number of hideouts in and around Kabul apparently intended to hold President Hamid Karzai and other top officials captive following a kidnapping, German newsweekly Focus reported in an edition to appear Monday.

Focus, citing a report by the German Foreign Intelligence Service (BND) made to the defense committee of the Bundestag Lower House of Parliament, said that former Afghan prime minister and rebel warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar was believed to be behind the plot.

Hekmatyar, a fierce opponent of Karzai's multiethnic coalition, commands troops that control the Afghan-Iranian border region, Focus said.

According to the BND report cited by Focus, Hekmatyar has joined forces with fighters of the former hardline Taleban regime who rely on support from allies in Pakistan.

Earlier this month, Afghan intelligence officials reported that a pirate radio station in the east of the war-ravaged country had broadcast calls believed linked to Hekmatyar for an uprising against the transitional government and coalition troops.

The station was promoting a message of violent opposition against Karzai's administration and the U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan, engaged in a hunt for Taleban and members of Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda network.

Many of Afghanistan's provinces are ruled by powerful warlords and ethnic groups, some of them sympathetic to the Taleban or Al-Qaeda.