A Briton kidnapped in Afghanistan was found dead on Saturday and Taliban rebels said they killed him, while in a separate incident, the Taliban said they killed an election candidate and four government officials.
Also on Saturday, an Afghan doctor said two bodies found dumped in a desert in the south were Japanese tourists who went missing last month. The two, a man and a woman, had been shot in the head, he said.
In the latest in a surge of fighting in the run-up to September 18 elections, the Defense Ministry said 16 Taliban were killed in a battle in the central province of Uruzgan on Saturday.
Briton Mr David Addison, who the Afghan government said was working on security for a road project, was kidnapped with an interpreter in the west of the country on Wednesday when gunmen ambushed their convoy, killing three police escorts .
"During search operations, coalition forces and Afghan forces found the body of David Addison," said Interior Ministry spokesman Lutfullah Mashal.
Addison was seized on the main road between the southwestern city of Kandahar and the western city of Herat.
A British embassy spokesman said the body was presumed to be that of Mr David Addison but he declined to comment further.
The Taliban, who are not known to operate in force in the west, said they kidnapped and killed Addison.
"We shot him because he was our enemy," Taliban spokesman Abdul Latif Hakimi said by telephone from an undisclosed location. Addison was a soldier, he said.
Mr Mashal said criminals in league with the Taliban were responsible. "They were hired by the Taliban," he said.