Insurgents have launched a gun and bomb attack in the central Afghan town of Tarin Kowt in Uruzgan province, leaving at least 17 people dead, officials say.
They say the violence began with two suicide bombings outside official buildings, followed by fighting between gunmen and security forces in a market.
The Taliban say they carried out the attack, which comes amid renewed violence in Afghanistan.
Nato says it is providing air support to Afghan forces.
Residents said heavy machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades and assault rifles were being used by both sides.
"So far 17 bodies and 37 wounded have been brought to the hospitals," provincial health director Khan Agha Miakhail told AFP news agency.
He added that a journalist was among the dead. Reports say the militants stormed the local radio and TV station.
Afghan intelligence officials told the BBC that the attack started when bombs exploded near the governor's office and the offices of a security firm owned by a local militia commander.
Eyewitness Mohammad Dadu, a butcher at the market, told the BBC: ''I didn't have time to close my shop. I saw two dead bodies and four injured people with blood on their clothes."
Afghan militants have stepped up their attacks as Nato troops begin the handover of security to local forces in parts of the country.
On Wednesday the mayor of the volatile city of Kandahar was killed in a suicide attack.
Two weeks ago, President Hamid Karzai's influential half-brother, Ahmad Wali Karzai, was killed in the same city.
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