GHAZNI, Afghanistan — At least nine police officers, including a local police chief, were killed in a Taliban attack in the southeastern provincial capital of Ghazni on Friday, according to Afghan officials.

It was one of the worst attacks in Ghazni since the Taliban tried to take the city in August, an assault that Afghan forces beat back with the help of American Special Operations troops and heavy airstrikes.

In the attack on Friday, which began before dawn and lasted three hours, the insurgents overran two security outposts in Ghazni’s third police district, killing the district chief and eight other police officers, according to Mohammed Arif Noori, the spokesman for the governor of Ghazni Province.

Mr. Noori said that a police officer was missing, and that officials suspected he was a Taliban infiltrator and had facilitated the attack.