KABUL, April 25: Dozens of suspected Taliban armed with rockets and machineguns stormed a government building in southeastern Afghanistan, killing two policemen and losing four of their own men, officials said on Monday. Militants attacked the government headquarters of Reg district in Kandahar province late on Sunday, deputy police commander Salim Khan said.

“We lost two policemen and four Taliban were killed,” Mr Khan said, adding that the attackers retreated to an area near the Pakistani border after an hour-long gunfight. Another Afghan soldier was wounded.

An Afghan intelligence official speaking on condition of anonymity confirmed the attack, but said at least 50 guerillas were involved.

“More than 50 Taliban armed with rockets and machineguns attacked the district building — there was heavy fighting,” the official said.

Meanwhile, Afghan police found and neutralized a car bomb containing almost half a tonne of explosives in western Herat city, officials said, as Taliban militants stepped up attacks across the country.

The bomb was made of rockets, mortar rounds, land mines and dynamite wired together and packed into a Toyota vehicle, Interior Ministry spokesman Lutfullah Mashal said.

“On Sunday in Herat city a vehicle was stopped because it was suspected of being a car bomb,” Mr Mashal said. Two US, two Afghan soldiers injured in patrol attack

US SOLDIERS: Two American and two Afghan soldiers were wounded when their patrol came under attack in southern Afghanistan, the US military said in a statement on Monday.