British and Canadian troops will now replace the US troops

The officials said more than 200 rebels were fighting 250 police and Afghan soldiers, as well as US troops - making it the biggest and deadliest battle in months.

The bloodshed underscores the massive challenge that will face thousands of British and Canadian troops in the next few months as they gradually relieve American forces in southern Afghanistan, a hotbed of anti-government insurgency and the drug trade.

Meanwhile, American and British war planes bombed suspected Taliban militants around midnight on Friday, killing eight of them, said Khan Mohammed, a police chief in Helmand province. The militants' bodies were left on the ground where they fell, he said.

The insurgents were fleeing the fighting that started hours earlier with a mountain ambush of a police convoy and ended with 16 militants and six police dead, and scores wounded, said Amir Mohammed Akhund, the province's deputy governor.

A US military statement said eight suspected insurgents were detained.

Remote-controlled bomb

Militants used remote-controlled bombs to attack convoys

Another group of militants also fleeing the initial clash attacked a government office in Helmand's Musaqala district early on Saturday, killing the government chief and wounding four policemen, Akhund said.

Then, later in the day, yet another militant gang attacked the main government office in neighbouring Nauzad district, setting off a two-hour gunbattle that left one policeman and three suspected Taliban dead, he said.

The fighting prompted dozens of families to flee their villages across the violence-wracked area, Mohammed said.

Militants used a remote-controlled bomb to attack a police convoy in Kandahar, the main city in southern Afghanistan and a former Taliban stronghold, said Sher Mohammed, a police officer.

A district police chief in the convoy was unhurt, but a woman and a child who were walking in the area were killed, and three other passers-by were wounded, he said.

Also in Kandahar, a Taliban commander, Abdul Samad, was killed by border forces as he tried to enter illegally from neighbouring Pakistan, Asadullah Khalid, Kandahar governor aid.

Ten other militants with him fled back across the frontier. The US military confirmed that it was involved in fighting on Friday, but spokesman Lt. Mike Cody said he had no reports of involvement on Saturday.

Suicide bombings

An Afghan donors' meet in London has pledged $10.5 billion in aid

The violence comes after an unprecedented spate of suicide bombings that have added a new security threat in the country four years after the ouster of the Taliban.

Fighting last year left some 1600 people dead, the highest death toll since 2001, as militants stepped up their campaign against the US-backed central government.

Afghan authorities blame much of the violence on foreign militants. An Iraqi was caught this week trying to sneak into the country - and after interrogating him, officials said they believe a large group of Arab al-Qaida militants are on their way in.

The latest fighting comes just days after an international donors' conference in London ended with $10.5 billion ( ¤ 8.75 billion) in new aid pledged - much of it for improving security.

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