KABUL, Afghanistan - NATO-led troops and Afghan forces detained a prominent Taliban commander during a raid at a compound in southern Afghanistan, the alliance said in a statement Wednesday.

US soldiers stand guard in Kabul, September 2006. US Defence Secretary Robert Gates flew to Afghanistan to see what needs to be done to turn back a Taliban resurgence seen as a growing threat to the gains made since their ouster five years ago. [AFP]

The commander, whom NATO did not name, was captured in Gereshk district in Helmand province late Tuesday and is the first Taliban leader captured by NATO-led and Afghan troops, NATO said.

The captured militant is wanted for questioning by Afghan security forces and managed to flee the latest offensive operation by Afghan and foreign security forces in southern Afghanistan, the statement said.

"This seizure of a Taliban commander once again shows that there is nowhere to hide for insurgent leaders," said Squadron Leader Dave Marsh, a NATO spokesman.

The operation came a day after Afghan agents arrested Mohammad Hanif, a purported militant spokesman as he crossed through an international border checkpoint from Pakistan.

Hanif, one of two spokesmen who would often contact journalists on behalf of the militia, was arrested at the border town of Torkham on Monday, said Sayed Ansari, the spokesman for Afghanistan's intelligence service. Two people traveling with him also were detained, he said.

Last month, a US-led coalition airstrike also killed Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Osmani, a key associate of Taliban chief Mullah Omar and the highest-ranking Taliban leader killed by the US-led coalition since the invasion of Afghanistan that ousted the hardline regime in late 2001 for hosting Osama bin Laden.

Over the past year, the Taliban have launched a record number of attacks, and some 4,000 people, most of them militants, have died in the insurgency-related violence, according to a tally by The Associated Press based on reports from Afghan, NATO and coalition officials.

Two Afghan civilians working for the US military, meanwhile, thwarted an attack on a US military base in Kabul on Tuesday, a statement from the US military said.

Initially NATO said that it had thwarted an attack at a base several miles away from where Defense Secretary Robert Gates was holding meetings with Afghan and US military officials.

But in a later statement, the US military said that an Afghan security guard and an interpreter, with help from US forces, detained the bomber who tried to crash the front gate of the camp in his explosives-filled car, the statement said.

"Together, the two prevented the driver from detonating his explosives after they failed to explode during the crash," it said.

Ordnance experts tried to disarm the devices found in the car but they exploded prematurely, injuring a number of Afghan civilians, Afghan officials said.