KANDAHAR: Unidentified gunmen shot dead a member of parliament in the troubled southern Afghanistan while 10 Taliban were killed laying a landmine, Afghan officials told the AFP on Saturday.

Legislator Habibullah Jan was shot dead by unknown gunmen while driving in the Zharai district in the Kandahar province late on Friday, district official Niaz Muhammad Sarhadi said.

The legislator was ambushed soon after leaving his home, residents said.

The Afghan interior ministry said it was investigating who was behind the assassination.

A spokesman for the Taliban said they were not involved in the shooting. "This is not our work," spokesman Yousuf Ahmadi told the AFP by telephone. Meanwhile, police in the southern province of Helmand said 10 militants were killed late on Friday when a mine exploded as they were trying to plant it in a road.

The militants were trying to lay the device near the town of Musa Qala. "Ten Taliban, including one of their commanders Mullah Jabbar, were killed when a mine they were burying on a road exploded," Helmand province police chief Muhammad Hussain Andiwal told the AFP. Their bodies were recovered by the security forces, he said.