Army chief Angus Campbell says the deaths of dozens of soldiers in Afghanistan were not in vain, despite recent Taliban advances on Tarin Kot, the city where Australian forces were based for almost a decade.

Dozens of Taliban fighters and several policeman are believed to have been killed during coordinated attacks on checkpoints near Tarin Kot, the capital of Afghanistan's southern Uruzgan province.

"[The militants] are in some areas as close as one kilometre and in some, five kilometres to the main city," Uruzgan security chief Abdul Qawi was quoted as saying by Afghan media.

In an online post, the Taliban claimed to have overrun 15 Government outposts, including a "strategic military base" in Uruzgan.

Australian forces completed their withdrawal from Uruzgan province at the end of 2013, after a 12-year mission which saw 41 Defence Force personnel killed and 261 seriously wounded.

The sacrifice of our people 'is a terrible loss'

Lieutenant General Campbell said he had always considered Australia's deployment to Afghanistan as part of a coalition effort to secure the country as a whole, rather than just Uruzgan.

"The sacrifice of our people is a sacrifice that is, I would say, worthy and it's a terrible loss," he said at the conclusion of the Chief of Army's Exercise in Adelaide.

"But it is … about a contribution to Afghanistan, not a contribution to either the valley in which they might have died or the district or, indeed, the province but ultimately about Afghanistan.

"I always have been of the view that our work in Afghanistan is work as a member of a coalition of about 50 countries.

"And necessarily in the period of our time there, 50 countries were applying a security pressure to Afghanistan, across Afghanistan."

Sorry, this video has expired Australian journalist Catherine James in Afghanistan talks about the fighting in Tarin Kot

The Army chief said "education, communication and thousands of kilometres of road infrastructure" had created "a fundamentally unstoppable social dynamic" that had liberated most Afghans from life under the previous Taliban regime.

Defence officials in Canberra are continuing to monitor the security situation in Uruzgan, one senior military figure told the ABC.

But they said it was not immediately clear how much territory the Taliban has managed to take back in the province.

Australian journalist Catherine James, who is in Afghanistan, said the situation was constantly changing.

"There are reports that the city has fallen but of course these things are too early to say," she said.

"The fight is going on and they are pushing the Taliban back where they can."