KANDAHAR, June 18: The Taliban said on Saturday they were holding 30 policemen and a local official at a district headquarters and planned to put them on trial for supporting the US-backed government in Kabul.

A senior police official in Kandahar province confirmed that the main government building in Mian Nishin, capital of the district of the same name, was under Taliban control after attacks on Thursday and Friday night.

Taliban commander Mullah Rahim, who led the attacks, telephoned news agencies and handed the phone to the senior police official being held, the district police chief Nanai Khan.

“They are going to put me on trial,” said a clearly nervous Khan, who has spoken to newsmen in the past.

Asked if any of the group had been killed, Nanai Khan initially replied: “Yes.” But after a few seconds of silence on the line, he corrected himself and replied: “No, no”.

Mullah Rahim said none of the prisoners had been killed and their fate would be decided by the group’s religious leaders.

“We will put them on trial,” he said. “We haven’t killed anyone yet and we won’t kill anyone until the mullahs issue a fatwa. When the mullahs issue a fatwa, we will decide.”

Asked what the men were accused of, Mullah Rahim said: “They were working for the government. We have told people many times not to work with the government.”

A senior police official in Kandahar said 13 people were captured by the guerillas in Mian Nishin on Thursday and 18 more on Friday.

The district is in the north of Kandahar province, about 400kms southwest of Kabul, and was the scene early this week of joint operations by Afghan and US-led forces in which government officials said nine guerillas were killed.

The capture of the men is a fresh crisis for authorities in Kandahar, the province worst hit by a recent surge of violence in Afghanistan that has raised fears for parliamentary elections due to be held on Sept 18.

In another incident in Kandahar province on Friday, a government soldier was killed and another wounded in a clash in Shawali Kot district, local corps commander Gen Muslim Hamid said. He said two guerillas were killed and three wounded.

A military statement said one US soldier and an interpreter were wounded in the incident, in which a patrol came under attack by up to 15 guerillas. It said the US-led forces responded with artillery and fire from aircraft.

In yet another incident, an Afghan patrol searched a village and detained 16 men after coming under fire, the statement said.

On Saturday, guerillas attacked government posts in the Dai Chopan district of Zabul province, which adjoins Kandahar, Gulab Shah Alikhail, a spokesman for the Provincial government said.

He said four guerillas were killed but there were no government casualties. Taliban spokesman Abdul Latif Hakimi said the guerillas killed three policemen, while one militant died.

On Monday, four US soldiers were wounded in a suicide attack outside Kandahar city, where at least 20 people lost their lives in a suicide bomb attack on a mosque on June 1.

—Reuters