Afghan warlord’s troops overrun provincial capital

FORCES of a northern warlord overran the capital of a remote Afghan province yesterday, the interior minister said, in a burst of factional violence undermining the authority of US-backed President Hamid Karzai.

Troops loyal to ethnic Uzbek warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum swept into Maymana, the centre of Faryab province, some 420 kilometres northwest of Kabul, yesterday morning, Interior Minister Ali Ahmad Jalali said.

“Today, at 10 o’clock, militia troops loyal to Gen Dostum entered Maymana city,” Jalali said. “They have control of the city.”

Jalali said there were no reports of casualties, but Dostum aides said guards had fired on a crowd, killing four people, as Governor Enayatullah Enayat was rushed to an airport.

Fighters swarming in front of the offices of the Kabul-appointed governor fired into the air and threw rocks at the building, the minister said.

“What Gen Dostum has done is against all military rules and the constitution of Afghanistan,” Jalali told a news conference.

The fighting was bad news for Karzai, and sure to lead to deep concern in Washington over the future stability of Afghanistan, just as American forces face a surge of violence in Iraq.

The city of Maymana fell before the arrival of hundreds of US-trained Afghan soldiers, who left Kabul for Faryab on Thursday afternoon. It was the second major burst of militia violence to rock Afghanistan in less than a month, and threw into further doubt this country’s readiness for national elections scheduled for September.

Trucks and pick-ups had ferried hundreds of green-bereted Afghan National Army troops to Kabul airport. Some clambered into a transporter provided by the US-led military coalition, which flew them toward Faryab, while others waited for a second aircraft.

Officials in Faryab have accused Dostum of trying to drive them out of office for allying too closely with Karzai’s central government. Dostum has maintained a large private army and strong political control in the region since the fall of the Taliban in late 2001.