Four "key" insurgent commanders have been killed or captured recently in British-controlled areas of southern Afghanistan, the chief spokesman for the armed forces said today.

Major General John Lorimer said this was in the Nad-e-Ali and Nahr-e-Saraj districts of Helmand province, where most of the 10,000 British troops are deployed.

Across Afghanistan 19 Taliban leaders and 252 lower-level fighters were killed or captured between 15 and 21 November , he said quoting Nato figures, and 387 insurgent commanders were killed or captured in the three months before November 18.

Though in the past Nato has fought shy of offering figures of killed or captured Taliban commanders, General David Petraeus, commander of foreign troops in Afghanistan, has recently gone out of his way to emphasise them. General David Richards, the head of Britain's armed forces, told MPs last week that the Taliban were being "hammered".