Kabul has detained more than 40 Afghan guards, who were on the payroll of the US military, after a deadly shootout left several police officers dead.

Afghanistan arrested and disarmed 41 guards employed by an international base in the southern province of Kandahar on Monday.

Sources said the guards would be sent from the southern province to the capital Kabul for investigation and trial.

The guards are accused of raiding the provincial prosecutor's office in the volatile region.

Earlier, Afghan President Hamid Karzai accused Afghan guards, purportedly working for US coalition forces, of engaging in a gun battle that killed 10 police officers including Kandahar Police Chief Mutaiullah Khan Qateh.

In a statement, Karzai demanded that the US-led troops hand over the guards involved in the incident.

US forces have denied responsibility for the controversial attack, saying that no international force had been involved in the lethal shoot out.

The US further called the deadly shootout an 'Afghan-on-Afghan' incident.

The developments come as a new wave of US troops has arrived in the troubled southern Afghanistan -- an opium-production hub where the foreign troops have lost several grounds to the Taliban militants in recent months.

The defeat has prompted the US President Barack Obama to send 21,000 extra troops in order to fight back al-Qaeda and Taliban-linked insurgents in the volatile region.

JR/SME/MMN