A suspected top Taleban commander has been arrested in an affluent Kabul neighbourhood by Afghan police and international peacekeepers, a senior official told AFP Wednesday.
Abdul Hadi, who commanded the hard-liners' forces in northern Afghanistan until late 2001, was arrested on Tuesday, Deputy Interior Minister General Hilaludin Hilal said.
"Hadi was arrested with four AK-47 machine guns, a long distance radio and documents indicating he was involved in several terror incidents," Hilal said, without elaborating.
Hadi was a former commander for the Hezb-i-Islami fundamentalist faction of wanted warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar but later joined the Taleban movement, Hilal said.
The arrest in the upmarket Wazir Akbar Khan - home to several embassies, prominent officials and a US-led coalition base - was a joint operation with troops from the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force, he said.
Hadi's arrest follows the detention by US-led forces of another Hezb-i-Islami commander, Amanullah, in nearby Wardak province last week.
Hekmatyar, named a global terrorist by the United States, is a former Afghan Prime Minister and was a leading mujahedin warlord during the 1979-1989 war against the Soviet army.
Washington accuses him of participating in and supporting terrorist acts committed by al Qaeda and Taleban.
At a press briefing earlier Wednesday, an ISAF spokesman said seven people had been arrested on Sunday because of suspected links to Taleban, al Qaeda or Hekmatyar.
Some 6,500 ISAF troops are working with Afghan police to maintain security in Kabul.
Another 13,500 US-led soldiers along with Afghan National Army and militia forces are hunting suspected Taleban insurgents and their al Qaeda allies mainly in south and south-eastern Afghanistan.
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