Twenty Taliban militants who were attempting to blow up a dam in the southern Afghan province of Helmand on the eve of the landmark parliamentary polls were arrested Saturday morning, a Defense Ministry spokesman said.

"Twenty Taliban militias were taken into custody while they were designing to blow up Kajaki dam in Helmand," spokesman Zahir Azimi told Xinhua. Both Afghan and US forces were involved in the operation leading to their arrests this morning, he said.

Hundreds of local people could have been killed if the massive dam busts.

Twenty-seven militants had been arrested over the past couple of days in the restive southern provinces, Azimi said.

Taliban, who described the Sept. 18 legislative poll as a US plot to "legitimize the US occupation of Afghanistan" have vowed to derail it.

Source:Xinhua