About 100 people were killed in two of the most violent days in Afghanistan since the 2001 ouster of the Taliban, as hundreds of insurgents attacked a southern town and fighting flared across the country.
Government officials said 13 policemen and 40 Taliban were killed in hours of fighting that raged after the strike on Mosa Qala town, 470 kilometres southwest of Kabul.
Helmand's deputy governor, Amir Mohammad Akhundzada, said it was the biggest strike in the province by the hardline Islamists since they were driven from power more than four years ago.
The Taliban have stepped up attacks on foreign and Afghan government forces in recent months as thousands more NATO peacekeepers arrive. Violence in parts of the country is the worst it has been since the end of their rule.
"Thirteen policemen were killed and six were injured," Interior Ministry spokesman Yousuf Stanizai said in a statement.
"Forty people on the enemy side were killed."
In a separate incident, a suicide car bomber attacked a convoy in the generally peaceful western city of Herat, killing himself and an American civilian.
A suicide bomber also attacked a US military convoy near Ghazni town, 125 kilometres southwest of Kabul, killing himself and a man on a motorcycle, an Afghan army officer said. A US soldier suffered minor wounds, a US military spokeswoman said.
A Canadian woman soldier was killed in fighting in neighbouring Kandahar province yesterday, hours before Canada's parliament narrowly backed a two-year extension of Canada's Afghan mission to 2009.
The US military said 18 Taliban were killed and 26 captured in the fighting in Panjwai district, 25 kilometres west of Kandahar town yesterday.
In fighting in the area today, seven Taliban were confirmed killed and up to 20 others might have been killed in an air strike.
Three policemen and an intelligence official were killed and six policemen wounded in other attacks in Ghazni, the provincial governor said.
NATO member nations are sending reinforcements to boost their peacekeeping force from 9,000 to 16,000. The force will soon take over in the perilous south in what is set to be the alliance's toughest ground mission in its 57-year history.
With about 23,000 troops, the United States now has its largest force in Afghanistan since the Taliban were ousted in 2001 after refusing to hand over Osama bin Laden, architect of the September 11th attacks