Taliban militants on Sunday intercepted the car of a government official, killing him and taking away his driver and one guard in southern Afghanistan's Zabul province, a provincial government spokesman said.

Abdul Kayum Mujabadi, director of Commission for National Reconciliation, a body established by Afghan government to persuade militants to lay down arms and join the government's peace efforts, was shot dead in Shahjoy district of Zabul, Zabul provincial administration spokesman Gulab Shah Alikhail told Xinhua.

"Mujabadi was on the way to Kabul with his driver and one guard when his car was stopped by the militants," the spokesman said.

Local police are conducting a search operation to recover the two missing, he added.

The Taliban has yet to make any comment.

Rising militancy-related violence killed over 6,000 people in the post-Taliban nation last year and analysts and NATO commanders have expected an upsurge of guerrilla-style attacks by Taliban militants in 2008.

(Xinhua News Agency, January 21, 2008)