Suspected Taliban militants hanged an old woman and her son after accusing them of spying for the government, as fighting between supporters of rival warlords in northwestern Afghanistan killed four people.
The 70-year-old woman and her 30-year-old son were killed on Monday in the village of Daigh, in the southern province of Helmand, according to the province's deputy governor Amir Mohammad Akhunzada.
Mr Akhunzada did not identify the two, but said the woman's son-in-law worked for the police in the district. After the killing, the militants threatened to kill anyone working for the government, he said.
"This hanging is totally against Islam. They use the name of Islam to go against Islam," Mr Akhunzada said.
The Taliban have stepped up attacks in southern Afghanistan this year. More than 900 people have died in violence since May, mostly militants killed in fighting with security forces.
The violence, the deadliest since the Taliban regime's ousting in late 2001, has underscored the weak grip of the government of US-backed President Hamid Karzai, particularly in the volatile south and east of the country.
Also in Musa Qala, British troops in a Nato-led security force accidentally shot and killed an armed Afghan policeman wearing civilian clothes after mistaking him for an insurgent outside a base yesterday, the British Ministry of Defence said.
Meanwhile, in the northwest, some 400 militants were involved in clashes on Monday in the Pashtun Kot district of Faryab province. Forces loyal to rival ethnic Uzbek warlords Abdul Rashid Dostum and Abdul Malik were involved, General Taj Mohammad, of the Afghan National Army corps said.
Dostum is the current chief of staff of the Afghan Army's High Command. At least one civilian was among the four people killed and hundreds of others fled the fighting, gen Mohammad said.
The army and police sent hundreds of troops to restore calm and detained Khalem Salem, a Malik supporter who was involved in the fighting.
It was not immediately clear what sparked the clashes, but the two groups had clashed 10 days earlier over a political dispute, leaving four dead.