HERAT: A Taliban roadside bomb killed the top police commander of a western Afghan province on Monday, officials said.

The police chief of the remote province of Nimroz, Musa Rasouli, was driving to work from the neighbouring province of Herat when his vehicle was hit by the bomb, the Herat governor's spokesman said.

Rasouli died while being rushed to hospital, the spokesman Moyedin Noori told AFP. “It was a Taliban bomb,” he added.

Roadside bombs are a favourite weapon of the Taliban in their campaign against the Kabul government and a US-led Nato force in Afghanistan.

The insurgents have also stepped up targeted killings of Afghan military and civilian officials, but it was not clear if Rasouli was the particular target of the bombers.

On Thursday, a Taliban suicide bomber with explosives in his underpants wounded the nation's intelligence chief after entering a tightly-guarded guesthouse by posing as a Taliban peace envoy.