(Recasts after attorney-general's news conference) KABUL, June 8 (Reuters) - Afghanistan's attorney-general accused a local security-forces commander of ordering bodyguards to beat him up on Friday, describing the attack as a reaction to the chief law officer's campaign against corruption. General Deen Mohammad Jurat, former head of security in the interior ministry, was reported by a local TV station to have denied the allegation. Reuters could not reach him by phone. Graft is widespread in Afghanistan, undermining confidence at home and abroad in the Western-backed administration of President Hamid Karzai, who has led the country since U.S.-led troops overthrew the Taliban in 2001. "You may know that I have declared jihad, holy war, against corruption, against criminals and crime and he is one of my potential targets," Attorney-General Abdul Jabar Sabet told a news conference in Kabul after the alleged attack. Sabet said he had encountered Jurat and his bodyguards on a road north of Kabul, near a popular picnic spot. Sabet said he had been hit in the neck with a rifle butt but he did not appear to be harmed. There was no independent eye-witness account. Jurat is also a former top military figure in the Northern Alliance, a group of militias and warlords that helped oust the Islamist Taliban regime. "I had a number of people arrested whom he wanted to have released. He sent me many messages asking me to release a number of certain people," Sabet said.
