A dozen Taliban inmates have been wrongly released from the central jail in the southern Kandahar province, a former stronghold of Taliban insurgents, Afghan newspapers reported Monday.

"Twelve high profile Taliban inmates have mistakenly been freed from the central jail in Kandahar with falsified documents," English paper Daily Outlook said Monday, citing police sources.

Quoting the deputy police chief of Kandahar, Rahmatullah Atrafi, the newspaper added that a letter from the attorney's office had ordered the release of 16 prisoners who had their jail terms served, but later it appeared to be bearing a fake signature of the attorney.

A local official in Kandahar, on the condition of anonymity, confirmed the release of the inmates and told Xinhua that the wardens of the jail after receiving a fake letter claimed to be from the national intelligence agency set free 12 detainees on Saturday.

In the meantime, Taliban militants who are fighting the Afghan and NATO-led forces in Afghanistan have claimed securing the release of 23 inmates from Kandahar jail in south Afghanistan.

The armed outfit in a statement posted on its website on Sunday claimed that the "Mujahideen (holy warriors) of Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (name of the former Taliban regime) in a surprise tactic secured the release of 23 Mujahideen on Wednesday from the enemy's prison in Kandahar, and the released comrades rejoined the Mujahideen rank."

In the statement, the Taliban outfit also noted that the Mujahideen had in the past three times broke out the jail in Kandahar and set free hundreds of Mujahideen enabling them to rejoin the war fronts.

It is not the first time that Taliban detainees made their escape from Kandahar prison. In the first attack against Kandahar prison in 2008, the Taliban militants set off an explosive-laden truck near the Kandahar jail, facilitating more than 1,000 inmates to escape, according to media reports.

Moreover, in 2011, Taliban militants, by digging a tunnel leading to Kandahar jail, had enabled 476 detainees to flee.