At least ten security officers have been killed in attacks in Afghanistan's southeast, officials said, a day after a top US general warned of an upsurge in Taliban attacks in the region. Five Afghan soldiers were killed in an ambush in Zabul province on Monday, provincial governor Khial Mohammed Husini announced. The soldiers were ambushed as they were travelling between provincial capital Qalat and their headquarters in the troubled Shahjoy district to the north, he said. "Government troops were dispatched to the area but did not find the attackers," he said. Husini accused members of the Taliban militia and supporters of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar of carrying out the atacks, the latest in a series of attacks to hit southern parts of the country in recent weeks. In a separate attack, five security officers were killed by suspected Taliban just after midnight Monday in southern Kandahar province, a former stronghold of the Taliban, provincial military spokesman General Abdul Wasay said. "Five people were killed by the Taliban last night at 12 in Mianishin district in northeastern Kandahar near the border with Zabul," he said. "Taliban attacked the district headquarters, they took these people with them and have killed them in the mountains." Kandahar's military commander General Khan Mohammed confirmed the second attack and said it was the work of Taliban. However, he said all five killed were government troops. Since the beginning of April about 50 people have died in the south and southeast of Afghanistan. Most of those killed were Afghan pro-government troops, but a high-ranking Muslim cleric, two Afghan aid workers and a former American football star, Pat Tillman, were also among the casualties. **PHOTO CAPTION*** Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. (AFP)