KABUL, Oct 15: A series of Taliban-linked attacks across Afghanistan left seven people dead on Sunday, and the Italian government said it believed a missing freelance photojournalist had been kidnapped.

The unrest was all linked to the Taliban movement, but a purported spokesman for the rebel group said it was not involved in the disappearance of Italian journalist Gabriele Torsello.

“All the indications show that it is a kidnapping and we are treating it as such,” Italian foreign ministry press office said in Rome about London-based Torsello, who has been missing for days.

The interior ministry in Kabul meanwhile told AFP it was still not sure the man had been snatched, while local media reports said he was captured by armed men claiming to be Taliban.

In the volatile southern city of Kandahar, unknown gunmen opened fire on provincial legislator Mohammad Younis Hussaini after he left his home and was headed for the office, a doctor at a hospital in the city said.

Three of his companions were hurt in the attack, said Mohammad Tahir at Mirwais hospital where the wounded were being treated.

It was not clear who carried out the shooting but the extremist Taliban movement has killed several government officials as part of its spiralling insurgency.

In the western city of Herat on Sunday, a bomb exploded near a convoy of men believed to be US nationals who trained police, police said.

“Two of our countrymen were martyred and another wounded. It was a roadside bomb exploded by the enemies of Afghanistan,” provincial police commander Mohammad Ayoob Salangi told reporters.

Police in the eastern province of Khost reported that hundreds of rebels attacked a police checkpost near the border with Pakistan.—AFP