NEW YORK (AFP) - US intelligence officials believe seized computer files showing strong ties between Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez and Colombian rebels are authentic, The Wall Street Journal reported.

The files show Venezuela made concrete offers to help arm the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the paper said, based on its review of more than 100 documents seized from a slain guerrilla leader's computer in March.

"There is complete agreement in the intelligence community that these documents are what they purport to be," an unnamed senior US official told the paper.

In the files, Venezuela appears to offer FARC use of a Venezuelan port to receive arms shipments, and suggests drawing up a joint security plan, the paper said.

In a document dating from November, Venezuelan Interior Minister Ramon Rodriguez Chacin asked the FARC -- considered a terrorist organization by Bogota and Washington -- to train Venezuela's military in guerrilla tactics, the paper said.

Caracas insists the files -- seized by Colombia after it bombed a camp in Ecuador, killing FARC's second-in-command Raul Reyes -- are fakes.

"We don't recognized the validity of any of these documents," Venezuelan Ambassador to the United States Bernardo Alvarez was quoted as saying in the latest denial Wednesday.

"They are false, and an attempt to discredit the Venezuelan government."

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