A warehouse belonging to Irish aid agency GOAL has been hit by a rocket during a fresh outbreak of fighting between commanders from rival factions in the new Afghan interim government, aid officials said.
One official said today that an aid worker in the town of Khulm, about 32 miles east of the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif, had told him that the warehouse was hit last night in crossfire between troops loyal to the rival commanders.
The warehouse was operated by an Afghan aid group working under GOAL.
The official said about 30 soldiers had been wounded in the fighting, the latest flare-up between the mainly ethnic Uzbek Junbish-i-Milli faction, led by warlord and deputy defence minister Mr Abdul Rashid Dostum, and the mainly ethnic Tajik Jamiat-i-Islami faction, which is seen as loyal to Defence Minister Mr Mohammad Fahim.
The aid official said the dispute began three days ago when nine commanders loyal to a Dostum leader, Ustad Kabir, defected to a Jamiat commander.
Kabir attacked troops loyal to the Jamiat commander when he refused to return the nine commanders to his control.
The aid official said Kabir had now been driven out of the town, but the situation there was extremely tense.
Some 40 members of the rival factions were killed in fighting in recent weeks.
The violence has thrown into question the ability of the UN-backed interim government to impose order as old tribal and ethnic hostility resurfaces in the wake of the defeat of the hardline Taliban.
The report of fresh violence in the north will only compound deep worry about security in Afghanistan and follows the murder of a government minister in Kabul on Thursday and the first attack on international security force men, also in the capital, yesterday.
There has recently been a spate of attacks on aid agency officials in Mazar-i-Sharif.
A worker for the UN children's agency UNICEF was shot and seriously wounded yesterday after gunmen tried to kidnap him, while another aid official is missing, suspected kidnapped earlier last week.
Aid agency officials say security in the area is deteriorating despite efforts to rid city centres of armed men, who have yet to be demobilised following the US-led war against the Taliban.
