KABUL, Oct 5: Nato-led soldiers have captured a Taliban commander said to have links to the most senior figures in the militia, the force said on Sunday.

Mullah Sakhi Dad and another insurgent were captured at a compound in Uruzgan on Wednesday, Nato’s International Security Assistance Force said.

He had been leading a “significant number of Taliban fighters” and was implicated in suicide bombings, the distribution of ammunition and the kidnapping of Afghan civilians, it said. Sakhi Dad was also connected to Taliban leadership, especially Mullah Berader Akhund, the Taliban’s second-in-command, it said. It appears he was captured in 2004.

Five Taliban and a policeman were killed in a clash in southern Afghanistan.—Agencies