KANDAHAR: Taliban rebels gunned down three pro-government officials and one of their sons in Afghanistan, authorities said on Sunday, also reporting a dozen more insurgents were killed in new clashes.

The head of the religious council of southern Uruzgan province, Mawlana Ahmadzada, was killed by machinegun fire hours after he was dragged from his home late Saturday in the provincial capital, police said.

He was captured with 10 bodyguards who were freed, provincial police commander Mohammad Qasim said.

A self-claimed Taliban commander, Mullah Ubaydullah Haqyar, said the cleric was killed for his links to the US-backed government of President Hamid Karzai.

“We killed him. He was working for the government,” the purported commander told newsmen by telephone from an unknown location.

Ahmadzada had also provided security forces to assist the Nato-led force in the province, officials said.

An influential tribal elder in the neighbouring province of Ghazni was also dragged from his home and shot dead on Saturday, provincial police chief General Alishah Ahmadzay said.—AFP