Scores of Taliban fighters attacked local government buildings in a district of northwestern Afghanistan on Sunday and may have reportedly controlled the whole area, Afghan officials said.

The attack is part of a wider offensive launched by the Taliban movement in the north of Afghanistan.

Commenting on the attacks in the district of Jawand, which is in the province of Badghis, provincial council chief Baha Agheem said: "The district has already fallen to the insurgents and the police and district chiefs have fled the area".

A spokesman for the provincial governor, Mirwais Mirzakwal, said the fighting was still raging but that the district looked likely to fall into the insurgents' hands.