Yar Mohammed, police chief of Mizan district in insurgency-hit Zabul province, was travelling Wednesday from neigbouring Kandahar province when his convoy was ambushed in Kandahar's Chinarto district, Zabul intelligence director Ahmed Zia Massoud said.

One of the attackers was killed in an exchange of fire following the ambush.

"The Taliban body is still lying on the spot and we have sent a convoy to the area to bring the bodies to the center of the province," Massoud told AFP by phone from the Zabul capital Qalat.

Chinarto lies 420km south of Kabul near Kandahar's border with Zabul.

Zabul, a mountainous province bordering Pakistan, is considered a stronghold of insurgents loyal to Afghanistan's former Taliban rulers. Government troops, officials and aid workers have come under repeated attack by suspected Taliban fighters there for the past year.