An AFP reporter at the scene reported hearing an explosion and gunshots. He said the area had been sealed off by police and helicopters were flying overhead. – File Photo by AFP

KANDAHAR: Armed men launched an attack on a police training centre just outside the southern Afghan city of Kandahar on Thursday, the provincial police chief told AFP.

“Some armed men have entered a police building, a training facility. They have been exchanging fire with police for the past hour. We have no report of casualties yet,” Khan Mohammad Mujahid said.

The building is also used as an army and police recruitment centre, he added.

A police official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said there were thought to be three attackers armed with assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades.

An AFP reporter at the scene reported hearing an explosion and gunshots. He said the area had been sealed off by police and helicopters were flying overhead.

Kandahar is the de facto capital of southern Afghanistan and seen as a traditional Taliban heartland area.

It has seen a number of insurgent attacks on police in recent months, including in February, when 19 people were killed in a string of attacks focused on the city's police headquarters claimed by the Taliban.

Nato-led forces say the area is now safer following intense fighting in recent months but police and officials are still regularly targeted.

Around 130,000 US-led Nato troops, about two-thirds of them from the United States, are in Afghanistan fighting a nearly 10-year insurgency led by the Taliban and other militants.

Limited withdrawals are due to start in a handful of areas from July, ahead of a planned transition to Afghan control of security across the country in 2014. – AFP