Afghans riot after cops detain 6 mullahs

The villagers rioted in Logar province just south of Kabul on Friday, breaking windows and throwing stones, deputy police chief Abdul Rasoul said. Gunfire was also heard coming from the mob, he said.

The crowd claimed police had shot dead two of the protesters, Rasoul said, adding though that officers had only fired into the air and that no bodies had been found after the clash.

"We've seen some blood at the scene of the riot but not any bodies to back up their claims. We are investigating everything," he told AFP.

The protest erupted in the province's Charkh district after police arrested the men, alleging they had been preparing to ambush a police convoy.

"Four men were arrested on Thursday and two others on Friday. We suspect that they have links to Taliban," Rasoul said. The men were being questioned, he said.

"An investigation will reveal whether they're Taliban or not."

Earlier men on a motorcycle opened fire Saturday on students leaving school in volatile southern Afghanistan, killing a pupil and a janitor, a provincial official said.

The attack in Lashkargah, capital of insurgency-hit Helmand province, comes two days after a schoolteacher was shot dead in the province in what President Hamid Karzai condemned as an act of terrorism.

No one claimed responsibility for either attack.