At least 11 people were killed and scores more wounded Thursday when the Taliban attacked a police headquarters in the southern city of Kandahar, officials and the insurgents said.

The assault comes amid a series of peace talks between Washington and the Taliban that both sides say are making progress but which, so far,  ave yielded no reduction in violence in the gruelling Afghan conflict.

Taliban spokesperson Qari Yousuf Ahmadi said the afternoon attack in Afghanistan’s second-largest city started with a car bomb, then saw gunmen storm the police compound.

“A number of [attackers] equipped with heavy and small arms breached the headquarters and launched their operations inside,” he said.

Baheer Ahmadi, the Kandahar governor’s spokesperson, said in a statement that 11 people had been killed, including nine civilians and two police officers, while another 80 — including women and children — were wounded. He earlier had given a toll of 12 dead.

Interior ministry spokesperson Nasrat Rahimi said eight attackers were involved. Two blew themselves up, while the remaining six were “cornered in a building”.

Hayatullah Hayat, the provincial governor for Kandahar, said Afghan security forces had launched a “clean-up operation” to see if any attackers were remaining.

“The fighting is over now. Some vehicles were burnt. Now, the Afghan army and US helicopters are hovering in the area,” police chief Tadin Khan told AFP.

Pictures on social media showed a huge plume of smoke rising over Kandahar, and Hayat said about six trucks carrying commercial goods had burnt.