KANDAHAR, May 31: Scores of Taliban stormed a district of southern Afghanistan and held control overnight while a police commander was killed in an ambush elsewhere, police said on Wednesday.

The insurgents overran Chora district in restive Uruzgan province late Tuesday, taking over the police command and district headquarters after a battle lasting several hours, provincial police chief Haji Rozi Khan said.

“They had control over the headquarters overnight but they left in the morning,” Khan said. “The centre of the district is no man’s land now, we are preparing to go back as soon as we get reinforcements.”

A purported Taliban spokesman Yousuf Ahmadi said the Taliban were still present in the district and had set fire to the police headquarters. He said the rebels had killed eight police but this was not confirmed. The movement’s spokesmen have in the past exaggerated their encounters with security forces.

In a separate incident late Tuesday, Taliban militia fired a rocket at a police convoy in southern Zabul province, killing the local police director and wounding at least three policemen, provincial spokesman Gulab Shah Alikhail said.

The director, Mohammad Rasoul, was killed when the rocket-propelled grenade struck one of three vehicles in the convoy near Qalat district, Alikhail said.—AFP