AFGHANISTAN Warlord loyalists force out governor

Fighters were preparing a counterattack.
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) -- Fighters loyal to several regional warlords stormed a remote provincial capital and forced the governor to flee, one of the group's leaders and a government official said today. At least 10 people were believed killed.
The violence presents a fresh security threat for President Hamid Karzai, whose authority is already sapped by factional fighting across a swath of northern and western Afghanistan as well as a spreading Taliban-led insurgency.
Clashes broke out late Thursday in Chagcharan, a small town that is the capital of western Ghor province, 220 miles west of the capital Kabul.
Din Mohammed Azimi, Ghor's deputy governor, said the governor had fled for either Herat or Kabul on Thursday afternoon.
Counterattack planned
Azimi, who said he was speaking from a village a few miles to the north of the city, said at least 10 of his men were killed and that more than 1,500 fighters were preparing a counterattack.
Ghulam Yahya, a former Ghor police chief who is now one of the warlords opposed to the governor, said he knew of only one person killed, but it was not clear if he was referring only to casualties on his side.
The fighting follows weeks of tension between allies of the provincial military commander, Ahmad Murghabi, and rival tribes over positions in the local administration.
Azimi said a group of rival factions led by Rais Salam launched the attack after rejecting an offer of control of four government departments, including police and intelligence.
Karzai, who returned today from a trip to the United States, has vowed to disarm the warlords who still control most of the country more than two years after the fall of the Taliban.
But footdragging by powerful regional leaders such as Herat Gov. Ismail Khan and Uzbek strongman Abdul Rashid Dostum means only a few thousand of the official total of 100,000 irregular fighters have given up their weapons so far.
Karzai was forced to divert hundreds of troops from the new U.S.-trained Afghan National Army to western Herat and to the northern province of Faryab earlier this year to quell fighting between warlord factions.
Factional tension has also wracked Sar-e-Pul and Balkh provinces, casting doubt on the country's readiness for national elections slated for September.
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