Seven police officers and five suspected Taleban fighters have been killed during an assault on government offices in southern Afghanistan.

Police said men with machine guns and rockets attacked district offices in Helmand province.

Helmand has seen a major escalation in violence this year. Britain is to send troops there in the New Year as part of a Nato expansion.

Militant-linked violence in Afghanistan has killed more than 1,400 this year.

The BBC's Andrew North in Kabul says the attack in Garmser district appeared to be a well-coordinated one on a small and largely untrained police force in one of the most lawless parts of the country.

He says there are mounting fears from many quarters that the four-year-old Taleban-led resistance is getting stronger.

Vehicles damaged

Police chief Haji Bahadur Khan said at least six other officers were wounded in three hours of fighting at the offices.

Some other attackers may have been wounded, but managed to escape after the fighting, Khan said.

He said the administrative buildings and four police vehicles were damaged in the early morning assault.

A spokesman for the Taleban movement, Qari Yousuf Ahmadi, told the AFP news agency that 90 of its fighters had carried out the attack.

Our correspondent says Helmand is one of the most challenging areas for the government of President Hamid Karzai and the international security forces.

In October, 18 police were killed after a Taleban ambush on their convoy.

In July, Taleban fighters killed four policemen in another ambush and captured another six.

PHOTO CAPTION

Taliban militiamen in Afghanistan. (AFP)

Source: BBC (with additions)