KABUL, Sept 10: At least 30 suspected Taliban militants have been killed during an ongoing operation by Afghan and US-led forces in southern Afghanistan a week before parliamentary elections, the defence ministry said on Saturday.

“During an operation in Grishk district of Helmand on Friday, Afghan and coalition forces killed 30 militants and captured... 60 others,” defence ministry spokesman Mohammad Zahir Azimi told reporters here.

Mr Azimi said a large number of weapons and ammunition were also seized from the captured fighters during the operation in the southwest province of Helmand.

He said the operation involving Afghan and US-led forces was ongoing in the restive province where militants from the ousted Taliban regime regularly attack foreign and Afghan troops.

A parliamentary candidate narrowly escaped an assassination attempt in which one of his bodyguards and an attacker were also killed in western Afghanistan, an official said on Saturday.

Ghulam Nabi Baloch escaped unharmed when unknown gunmen opened fire on his campaigning vehicle just outside Herat city on Friday, the official said.

“Mr Balouch survived, but one of his bodyguards was killed in the firing,” Noor Ahmad Alizai, district chief of Kohsan district where the attack occurred told AFP.

He said one of the attackers was killed and another captured.

Investigations were underway to find out who was responsible for the incident, which followed an attack on a female candidate in eastern Afghanistan late Wednesday.

Six candidates have so far died in the political violence since early July when some 5,800 Afghan men and women signed up to run in the country’s first parliamentary polls in more than 30 years.—AFP