A senior Taliban military commander, Mullah Dadullah, has been captured in Afghanistan, according to reports.
In a report on its website, the BBC quoted high-ranking Afghan officials as saying that Dadullah was captured by international troops in the southern province of Kandahar.
It said the Taliban had not confirmed the arrest of Dadullah, who has been blamed for much of the recent violence in the southern province of Helmand where thousands of British troops are being deployed.
About 100 people were killed in violence that began on Wednesday. It included a large-scale attack on a town in the southern province of Helmand and two suicide blasts in different parts of the country.
A spokesman for Afghan President Hamid Karzai said some high-ranking Taliban had been captured this week but he could not confirm the BBC report.
"There was an operation and three high-ranking Taliban commanders have been captured but I cannot confirm that Mullah Dadullah was one of them," said the spokesman, Karim Rahimi.
The BBC said Mullah Dadullah was captured by international troops in Kandahar but Afghan and foreign military officials said they could not confirm the report. The commander of Afghan forces in the south, General Rahmatullah Raufi, said a seriously wounded militant with only one leg had been captured. "We can't say for sure it is Mullah Dadullah. Mullah Dadullah has only one leg and this guy has only one leg, but we suspect it's him," Gen Raufi said.
Dadullah is a member of the Taliban's ten-man leadership council and is regarded as close to fugitive Taliban leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar. There have in the past been several erroneous reports that he had captured or surrounded.
The Taliban have stepped up attacks on foreign and Afghan government forces in recent months as thousands more Nato peacekeepers arrive in the country. Foreign commanders say the Taliban want to sap domestic support for the deployments, which will push the number of foreign troops to nearly 40,000, the most since 2001.