Taliban militants have seized control of a district in Afghanistan’s volatile south after an hours-long clash that killed five people, including the local police chief and the political leader.

A suicide bomber rammed his explosives-filled car into a two-vehicle convoy carrying foreigners south of the Afghan capital today, a police official said.

Nato today said as many as 150 insurgents were killed in a battle in eastern Afghanistan after two large groups of fighters crossed the border from Pakistan.

A suicide car bomber rammed into an Afghan and Nato convoy today, killing an Afghan soldier and a civilian while a second suicide bomber disguised in a burqa injured two Afghan soldiers in a nearby province, officials said.