KABUL, AFGHANISTAN - An Afghan journalist was freed Thursday after spending two nights in US military detention with two of his brothers following their arrest during a raid against radical networks, the reporter said.

Nowra Jan Baheer, who works for an Afghan media group in the eastern town of Khost, was detained with his brothers late Tuesday during a US military operation against Islamist networks involved in an extremist insurgency.

'I and my brothers were freed today,' the 27-year-old Baheer told AFP by telephone.

He would not talk about his detention over the telephone. 'I can only tell you that they had intercepted and listened to all my phone conversations,' Baheer said.

He said the military had apologised. 'They said the information they had about me was wrong and they said they are sorry,' he said.

The journalist has been working for an independent radio station in The Killid Group for five years.

The reporter was not the target of the raid to find a militant who helped to supply and arm fighters from the Taliban's Al-Qaeda-linked Haqqani network, the US military said Wednesday.

However he had been found to be 'in possession of information that needs to be checked out,' a spokeswoman said.

The detention was condemned by local journalists with the worldwide media rights groups Reporters Without Borders demanding an explanation for the arrest.

Journalists are often caught up in Afghanistan's insurgency, which is led by the extremist Taliban militia who were removed from government in a US-led invasion in late 2001.

Several have been killed by militants and some have been detained by the authorities.