KABUL: A roadside bomb killed a district police chief in restive southern Afghanistan and his two bodyguards, police said.

Helmand province police chief Mohammad Hakim Angar said on Monday that Mohammad Saifullah, the police chief in the province's Garm Ser district, was killed when a roadside bomb detonated as he and two of his bodyguards were driving by on Sunday night.

Helmand is one of Afghanistan's most violent provinces and sits in the heart of the Taliban's traditional stronghold in the south.

Security responsibilities in the province's capital have already been handed over to Afghan forces by Nato while two other districts in the province are being recommended for an upcoming second phase of handovers. Garm Ser is not among them.