Afghan death toll now estimated at 104

Up to 104 people are now believed to have been killed in some of the fiercest violence since the 2001 fall of the Taliban erupted across Afghanistan.

The estimates of Taliban fighters and suicide bombers killed ranged up to 87, with 14 Afghan police, an American civilian, an Afghan civilian and a Canadian soldier also killed in the multiple attacks late yesterday and today.

Coalition forces have had to deal with multiple firefights, two suicide car bombs and a massive rebel assault on a small village.

The battles between Afghan or coalition forces and Taliban militants – which were concentrated in the south – follow months of stepped-up attacks in the region.

An assault by hundreds of enemy fighters on a small southern town marked another escalation in the campaign by supporters of the former Taliban regime to challenge the US-backed government of President Hamid Karzai.

The attack late on a police and government headquarters in the town of Musa Qala in Helmand province sparked eight hours of clashes with security forces.

The interior ministry said about 40 militants were killed, though police said they had retrieved only 14 bodies.

About a dozen police were killed and five wounded in the attack some 95 miles north-west of Kandahar, said deputy governor Amir Mohammed Akhunzaba.