Taliban enter key Afghan city

Taliban militants on Monday after fierce clashes entered the capital of Afghanistan's Kunduz province.

"Taliban have surrounded provincial police department and I am calling upon central government to dispatch reinforcement," a Kunduz city police spokesman Sayed Sarwar Hussaini told Xinhua news agency.

He said clashes have been continuing in different parts of the city and the security forces would do their best to repulse the Taliban offensives.

Militants are attacking the city from several directions and are reported to have briefly entered a hospital. There are casualties on both sides, police said.

The assault comes a day after a bomb attack at a sports match in the eastern Paktika province left nine people killed.