KABUL: Taliban insurgents executed five civilians near Kabul for working with Nato troops, authorities said Sunday, the latest in a series of militant activities in villages around the capital.

The incident in central Wardak province's Jalrez district, 40 kilometres south of Kabul, came a day after the insurgents publicly lashed two Afghan men and just weeks after the public execution of a woman for adultery.

In Jalrez, the rebels captured six Afghans returning home from work at a Nato base. The bodies of five of them were found on Sunday, all booby-trapped with explosives, a statement from the provincial governor's office said.

Their hands were tied behind their backs, a witness told AFP.

The sixth man fled his captors, the statement added, blaming the killings on the Taliban, the main insurgent group fighting the Western-backed government of President Hamid Karzai and a 130,000-strong US-led Nato force.

The rebels are particularly active across the southern and eastern provinces, and appear to have stepped up efforts to impose their harsh version of Islamic Sharia laws implemented when they were in power between 1996 and 2001.

On Saturday, Taliban insurgents whipped two men 40 times in public in a village south of Kabul after accusing them of attempting to kidnap a young boy for ransom.

Earlier this month, a video showing the public execution of a 22-year-old woman who was shot in the back in Parwan province just north of Kabul in front of a crowd of cheering men, drew worldwide condemnation.