Afghan soldiers backed by British infantry were still fighting in the outskirts of Musa Qala last night, hours after a Taleban spokesman announced that the guerrillas had abandoned their defences.

Earlier in the day, Afghan Defence Ministry officials said that their troops had fought their way into the town — and then that Musa Qala had fallen.

However, a Nato spokesman said that the attackers had not yet fully broken through defences that the guerrillas have spent months preparing. The attacking force is advancing with caution because of the danger of booby traps and the risk of civilian casualties.

By the end of a fourth day of fighting it was not clear who was still resisting in the town, which has been held by the Taleban for ten months after it was handed back by the British to Afghan elders. Qari Yosouf Ahmadi, a Taleban spokesman, said that the Taleban had withdrawn to spare civilians.

Nato expects that many Taleban fighters will seek to escape before the end of the battle. Reports of foreign fighters, including Pakistani Taleban and Arab jihadis, have raised the possibility that some men seeking martyrdom would fight to the end, however.

Afghan National Army soldiers, backed by British infantry, were reported to be battling compound to compound at the edge of the town. Fears were growing that there may have been heavy civilian casualties. Residents contacted by Wakht radio station in Lashkar Gah, the capital of Helmand province, said that there had been around 30 deaths.

Hundreds more from the town, including women and children, were believed to have fled into the desert. Most families left one man behind to defend their properties from looting.

Nato has said that it is ready to garrison the town with Afghan soldiers and move in reconstruction projects when it falls, to win hearts and minds in the district which has been badly damaged by conflict in the past 18 months.

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