KANDAHAR, Feb 2: Afghan authorities lost control on Friday of a southern Afghanistan district British forces left to tribal elders last year, after Taliban fighters attacked and disarmed police, officials said.

Provincial governor Asadullah Wafa said civilians were fleeing Musa Qala district, in Helmand province, fearing the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and Afghan army would launch strikes to drive out the Taliban.

Tribal elders said the district centre was `under serious threat and pressure from the enemy’, but was `not completely under control of the enemy’, an interior ministry spokesman said.Taliban attacked the district headquarters late on Thursday and destroyed part of the compound, spokesman Zemarai Bashary said.. The number of casualties was not clear but the situation is `very serious’, he said.

Wafa said the district police had been disarmed and the district building abandoned. “No one is in the district building now, neither the Taliban nor the administration,” he said.

“They destroyed a wall of the district building and disarmed the police force in the area but they did not capture the policemen, they let them go.”

About 20 families had left the district centre because they were `afraid that NATO and Afghan forces will start fighting’, he said.

“We have received reports that a limited number of Taliban are in the district. We are gathering information. It is unclear what the implications are,” a British military official said.

British forces pulled out of the district in September at the government's request after tribal elders, wanting to avoid military strikes, said they would keep the Taliban out themselves. Wafa criticised the controversial deal. “Even from the beginning I said this is not going to work,” he said.—AFP