KABUL, Nov 8: Afghan government and international military officials said on Saturday that Taliban militants had gunned down a district governor overnight and about 30 militants had been killed in various clashes.

Two men delivering voter registration material for presidential elections due next year were meanwhile missing for a second day and believed kidnapped, the Independent Election Commission said.

Militants ambushed the governor of Taywara district in the remote central province of Ghor on Friday night as he was driving to the provincial capital, police said.

“The district governor was killed and his driver was wounded,” Ghor police chief Shah Jahan Noori told AFP. He blamed the attack on Taliban militants who have increased their attacks against Afghan government and non-governmental organisations to a new high since they were ousted from power in late 2001.

Separately, the government of Ghazni province said that 20 militants were killed on Friday in an operation involving Afghan and international troops.

The bodies of the dead had been left at the scene of the fighting in Ab Band district, provincial government spokesman Ismail Jahangir said.

The US-led coalition helping the government put down a Taliban-led insurgency also announced that its forces had killed 10 militants and detained 13 in operations on Friday against “terrorist networks” in eastern Afghanistan.

Two Afghan drivers contracted by the election commission to transport materials went missing on Friday in Wardak, an unstable province bordering Kabul, election and government officials said.

“The attackers also set ablaze some papers, which were blank registration forms, and other material,” Deputy Chief Electoral Officer Zekria Barakzai told AFP.

Wardak government spokesman Adam Khan Sirat said the two had been kidnapped by the “enemies of Afghanistan”.—AFP