KABUL, Afghanistan – Gunmen targeting an Afghan provincial council chief killed four of his bodyguards, while a Taliban leader died in an airstrike in central Afghanistan, officials said Monday.

Gunmen in the southern city of Kandahar tried to kill Mohammad Hashim, the provincial council chief of neighboring Zabul province, said Fauwzia, a council member who goes by one name. The attack late Sunday sparked a clash between Hashim's bodyguards and the militants in which four bodyguards were killed, she said.

In Ghazni province, Abdul Rahim Deeceewal, the district chief of Andar, said a targeted airstrike killed a Taliban leader as well as three other people in Andar.

But the U.S. coalition said it had no reports that its soldiers carried out any operations in Andar.

Afghanistan has seen record levels of violence in 2008. More than 4,600 people – mostly militants – have been killed in insurgency-fueled violence this year, according to an Associated Press count based on figures from Western and Afghan officials.