Abdul Majeed Akhonzada, deputy director of the provincial council, said Kanashin district has “fallen into Taliban hands”.
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Officials said that battle started after Taliban fighters attacked parts of the district on Friday night, reports Tolo news.
An Afghan army offensive launched in the nation’s restive southern Helmand province has killed at least 30 Taliban members, while in Kabul a vehicle bomb explosion has left two people dead and two injured.
Khanshin, is a major poppy-producing district and an important drug smuggling route to neighboring Pakistan.
The fighting has spread north to other districts, where militants are targeting checkpoints and have killed at least seven policemen, he said.
Atal said troops had been deployed to retake the district, but it would be a hard task “because the Taliban have destroyed all the checkpoints”.
The district produces most of the opium in the world and this will fund the insurgency of the group.
The renewed offensives are a bid by the Afghan government to regain control of some five per cent of territory that has been lost to insurgent groups since May past year, according to the U.S. special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction.
The report said the Afghan government was in control of 65.6 percent of the districts in the country in May, a drop from 70.5 percent near the end of January.
It said that of Afghanistan’s 407 districts, 268 were under government control of influence, 36 or 8.8 percent were under insurgent control or influence, and 104 or 25.6 percent were considered “at risk”.
In a brief statement sent to VOA, he said the insurgents inflicted heavy casualties on Afghan security forces before they abandoned Khanashin.
The report says that in addition to losing ground to the Taliban, the Afghan National Army has come under pressure from other militant groups, such as the Islamic State group and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan.
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A 40-year-old man was killed instantly and a 23-year-old man died later of his injuries, Ahmadi said.
