Yousuf Azimy • Reuters

KABUL, 8 March 2004 — The Afghan government said it would rush troops to a northern province to restore order after several districts were overrun by forces of a regional strongman yesterday in a fresh challenge to President Hamid Karzai.

The Defense Ministry said a battalion of troops would be sent to stop the fighting between forces of the provincial government and those of northern strongman Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum, who is also an adviser to Karzai.

The ministry was meeting officials of the US-led military forces in Afghanistan to arrange for the troops to be flown to the province, spokesman Gen. Zahir Azimy said. “The aim of sending these troops is to stop the fighting, preserve peace and stability and show the presence of the central government,” he told Reuters.

It is the second time in less than a month that the government has decided to send in troops from the still infant national army to keep order in the troubled provinces and deal with unrest involving warlord militias targeted for disarmament.

The embattled governor of Faryab, Anayatullah Anayat, appealed for the troops, saying several districts had been overrun by forces of the ethnic Uzbek leader Dostum in a four-pronged overnight assault.

The commander of the provincial militia Gen. Mohammad Hashim Habibi said Dostum’s forces came by truck and horseback from neighboring provinces and were backed by tanks.

Anayat said earlier his troops were outnumbered and many had been disarmed by Dostum’s troops. He did not have any casualty figure, but said: “There are bound to have been deaths. Our soldiers have been putting tough resistance.”

Anayat said fighting was going on within 20 km from the provincial capital Maimana.

Karzai’s spokesman Jawed Ludin said Anayat was the president’s legitimate representative in Faryab and any moves against him would not be tolerated. “We will take every measure necessary to ensure the security and safety of the people of Faryab and the authority of the government,” he said.

A federalist, Dostum unsuccessfully opposed Karzai’s bid for a strong presidency in a constitutional assembly in January.

Anayat charged that Dostum had launched the assault after Kabul turned down his demand to be appointed defense minister or army chief of staff. He said several key roads linking Faryab with neighboring provinces had been cut by the fighting.

The fresh burst of factional fighting is bad news for Karzai, who needs to ensure security for elections due in September with the help of NATO-led peacekeepers.

There were fierce clashes in the western city of Herat last month after forces of a commander appointed by Karzai killed the son of the provincial governor, who was also a cabinet minister.

Meanwhile, a suspected top Taliban commander has been arrested in an affluent Kabul neighborhood by Afghan police, a senior official said yesterday.

Abdul Hadi, who commanded the Taleban forces in northern Afghanistan until late 2001, was arrested on Tuesday, Deputy Interior Minister Gen. Hilaludin Hilal said.

“Hadi was arrested with four AK-47 machine guns, a long distance radio and documents indicating he was involved in several terror incidents,” Hilal said.

without elaborating.

Hadi was a former commander for the Hezb-i-Islami faction of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar but later joined the Taleban movement, Hilal said.

The arrest occurred in the upmarket Wazir Akbar Khan — home to several embassies, prominent officials and a US-led coalition base, he said.

Hilal said that the arrest was jointly conducted with the NATO-led peacekeepers, but International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) spokesman Commander Chris Henderson said this was not the case.