KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN — A secret objective of the Taliban's spectacular attack on Arghandab district last week was a brazen raid on a property owned by a former warlord, where the insurgents may have stolen cash, guns, or even Stinger missiles, Afghan officials say.

In the chaos of the insurgents' first major offensive on the northern approaches to Kandahar city, Taliban fighters seized control of Chahar Ghulba, a village about 10 kilometres north of the provincial capital.

The symbolism was immediately obvious: The village had been home to Mullah Naqib, a legendary warrior whose reign as the district's leading tribal elder had ensured the relative peace in Arghandab.

Mr. Naqib died of a heart attack last month, and the Taliban's occupation of his village emphasized how badly the district's security had deteriorated without him.

It was only after the Taliban fled, chased away by the Canadian troops and their local allies, that the government forces discovered signs the Taliban may have had a more tactical reason for raiding the village.

"The place where we were fighting, we found a lot of ditches, so maybe Taliban took away some weapons," said Lieutenant-Colonel Shirin Shah Kowbandi, commander of a battalion in the Afghan National Army's 205th Corps, who led Afghan forces against the Taliban in Arghandab. "I'm not sure yet."

Inside a compound that belonged to Mr. Naqib, piles of fresh soil were heaped around holes recently hacked into the earth, a local politician said.

The excavations were about a metre to a metre-and-a-half deep, he said, and nearby two metal shipping containers appeared to have been forced open.

Like other former warlords, Mr. Naqib had joined the new government's disarmament, demobilization and reintegration (DDR) program, giving up the weapons he used to fight the Soviet invasion in the 1980s. But he was widely believed to keep a stash of spoils from his days as a warrior: perhaps only a cache of valuables, or maybe more weapons.

One provincial official said the rumours even included tales of hidden Stinger missiles, the anti-aircraft weapons supplied by the United States to the anti-Soviet resistance. Any leftover Stingers from the Cold War would have exceeded their shelf life, but might still prove tempting to curious Taliban who still lack an effective way of fighting NATO aircraft.

However, a former friend of Mr. Naqib said nothing of value was stored inside the compound.

The Taliban were mistakenly led on a treasure hunt, he said, by an insurgent sympathizer from Chahar Ghulba who believed the false rumours.

Zemarai Khan, Arghandab district police chief, gave a similar explanation: "They couldn't take weapons because there weren't any, although they searched many places," he said. "They got rice, oil, wheat, flour, but nothing else."

A Western security official said he heard another version of the story, saying it's possible that Mr. Naqib's tribesmen, the Alokozais, dug up weapons from his arsenal in the days before the Taliban's attack, knowing that insurgents were planning a sweep into the district.

All of the senior Alokozai vehemently deny the existence of any such arsenal. "We gave all the weapons to the DDR," Mr. Khan said. "We didn't keep any of them. I was a close friend of Naqib, and I know he didn't have any weapons."

If weapons were to have emerged from hiding places in Arghandab district, it would serve as another indicator of the rising instability on the Canadians' new northern front.

Since mid-2006, most of the Canadians' efforts have focused on defending Kandahar city from the southwest, and the emergence of heavy fighting north of the city has badly stretched the pro-government forces.

Despite those concerns, Canadian and Afghan security officials held a celebratory press conference Saturday. Their combined forces - in the end, 300 Canadian soldiers, 350 Afghan National Army troops with Canadian mentors, and 200 Afghan National Police with American mentors - quickly defeated a group of perhaps 300 Taliban who infiltrated the district, they said.

"This is the first time when the ANP, ANA and Canadians really worked together," said Lt.-Col. Thomas Ritz, an American police mentor. "This was a very big step on the part of all three agencies." He added: "The shock and violence of our action, without hurting the people of the Arghandab, took it to the enemy and swept them from the battlefield decisively."