A Taliban key commander, Mullah Dadullah, has rejected the NATO claim that its forces killed more than 200 militants in militias' former stronghold in Kandahar in south Afghanistan over the weekend, a Kabul-based newspaper reported Tuesday.

NATO forces in Afghanistan in a press release issued Sunday counted Taliban-linked militants' causalities in the restive Panjwai district of Kandahar over 200 in an operation launched on Saturday.

Taliban's commander termed the claim as "propaganda" and rejected it.

"They (the NATO troops) are saying that they have killed 200 Taliban but they did not kill even 10 Taliban fighters," daily Outlook quoted Dadullah as saying.

Dadullah also claimed that the majority of the casualties reported by NATO are civilians as according to him the NATO troops targeted civilian houses and destroyed their lands.

The Taliban commander also warned journalists to be cautious about their reporting on Taliban's casualties.

His men "would target journalists who reported wrong information given by the U.S.-led coalition or NATO. We have the Islamic right to kill these journalists and media," Dadullah was quoted by Outlook as saying.

Taliban fighters who staged a violent comeback this year have no specific address but their commanders often contact certain media through satellite phones from unknown locations and inform them about their activities.

More than 2,100 people have been killed in Taliban-linked insurgency in Afghanistan since January this year.

Source: Xinhua