KABUL, Sept 23: Afghan security forces arrested five Islamic fighters, including a group commander of an outlawed militant group, after a crackdown on their hideouts just south of Kabul, senior Afghan officials said on Thursday.

"A group of terrorists have been arrested in Logar province..." Interior Minister Ali Ahmad Jalali told a regular news briefing in Kabul. Mr Jalali said the arrests led police to several other militant hideouts just outside Kabul.

"Investigations are ongoing. I can tell you in Logar, there have been several arrests," he said, declining to give further details.

Logar provincial governor Mohammad Aman Hamimi told AFP that five people, including a suspect named Babrak who he described as a group commander of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's outlawed Hezb-i-Islami faction, were arrested over the weekend. -AFP