Afghan police officers stand guard at the site of a suicide attack outside the Indian embassy in Kabul on July 7. (Rahmat Gul/Associated Press)

Pakistan on Friday angrily denied a New York Times report that its intelligence service helped plan a bombing at the Indian Embassy in Afghanistan that killed at least 41 people, amid mounting allegations the secretive agency is aiding Islamic militants.

The Times reported that American intelligence agencies have concluded that members of Pakistan's powerful Inter-Services Intelligence were involved in the July 7 attack in Kabul, the Afghan capital.

The report cited unnamed U.S. government officials. It said the conclusion was based on intercepted communications between Pakistani intelligence officers and militants who carried out the attack.

Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammed Sadiq described the report as "total rubbish," saying there was no evidence of ISI involvement.

"The foreign newspapers keep writing such things against ISI, and we reject these allegations," he said by telephone from a summit of South Asian leaders in Sri Lanka.

Links alleged between ISI and Taliban

Afghanistan has long accused the ISI of backing the Taliban-led insurgency wracking the country, despite Pakistan's support of the U.S.-led war on terror. The embassy bombing was the deadliest in Kabul since the 2001 ouster of the Islamist regime in a U.S. invasion.

Last week, India accused "elements of Pakistan" of being behind the blast. India said the four-year-old peace process between historic rivals India and Pakistan, which have fought three wars since they won independence from Britain 60 years ago, was "under stress."

A Bush administration official told the Associated Press on Wednesday that U.S. intelligence agencies suspect rogue elements in ISI of giving militants sensitive information that helps them launch more effective attacks from Pakistan's tribal regions bordering Afghanistan.

The official said that top U.S. Central Intelligence Agency and military officials travelled to Pakistan five days after the Indian Embassy attack to press their misgivings about apparent ties between militants and some mid-level ISI officials, amid mounting evidence initially collected by the United States and then corroborated by Indian intelligence.

This week, U.S. President George W. Bush publicly praised visiting Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani of Pakistan as a strong ally against terrorism. But according to a report in Pakistan's The News daily, Bush expressed concern over ISI elements leaking information to militants and asked Gilani who was controlling the spy agency.