Afghanistan's ruling Taliban have arrested 25 followers of tribal leader Hamid Karzai, a supporter of ex-King Zahir Shah, and planned to execute some yesterday, the Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press (AIP) reported.
But Hamid's brother, Ahmed Karzai, denied the report and said his brother was fine.
A Taliban minister in Kabul said the militia attacked Karzai's camp on Thursday and the former minister fled to the hills after a battle in which two of his men were killed.
Ahmed Karzai called the AIP report of the 25 arrests wrong.
"That is all lies, it is not true," he told reporters in the southwestern Pakistan city of Quetta.
Karzai said he had spoken to his brother at about 0630 GMT (10:30am in Kabul) yesterday.
"We managed to talk to him ... they are OK. There was some fighting, some heavy fighting yesterday. One of the people in the group was slightly injured," he added but he would not elaborate.
AIP said Karzai, 46, a deputy foreign minister in a pre-Taliban government, was believed to be on a mission similar to that of former mujahidin commander Abdul Haq, who was captured and summarily executed by the Taliban last weekend.
Haq, who favored a role for the deposed king in building a post-Taliban government, was trying to rally Pashtun warlords to switch allegiance from the ruling Muslim movement.
AIP said Karzai's followers could be executed.
"It is expected that some of the important people of those arrested may be hanged later today in Kandahar though it is possible that they may be hanged in Uruzgan," AIP quoted a Taliban source as saying.
Taliban Information Ministry official Qari Fazil Rabi said US helicopters fired on the Taliban as they attacked Karzai, a leader of the Popalzai tribe, on Thursday.
"Hamid Karzai and his companions fled to the mountains and two of their men were killed in the operation. We also seized 600 new guns which were dropped in the area by American helicopters, which also pounded the area during our operation," Rabi told reporters.
Independent confirmation of the report from the remote, war-ravaged region, was still not available.
"We are chasing them now. We believe that Karzai and his people were brought to the area most probably by American helicopters as it is difficult to get there," he said.
Rabi said Taliban fighters walked for nine hours to get to Karzai's base in the Dehrawood area of Uruzgan.
Haq called on his satellite telephone for US air cover when he was cornered by the Taliban in northeast Afghanistan. But the US could send only an unmanned Predator spy plane equipped with Hellfire missiles that was in the area. Haq was captured, taken to the outskirts of Kabul and killed.
Asked how the Taliban would treat Karzai and his men if they are captured, Rabi said: "They will be dealt with on the basis of the ulema's verdict."
The ulema, Muslim clergy, has ruled that those who enter Afghanistan to fight the Taliban should be treated as spies and executed.
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