Dozens killed as Afghan disarmament signed

Dozens of people were reported killed or wounded in fighting yesterday between pro-government factions in northern Afghanistan as a deal was signed on a key UN-backed plan to demobilise warlord armies.

The security commander in the northern capital of Mazar-i-Sharif declared a night-time curfew there after the clashes west of the city between Jamiat and Junbish forces, made up mainly of rival ethnic groups in the volatile region.

Rival commanders said more than 50 people were killed and wounded in the clashes which came as the Defence Ministry, the United Nations and Japan signed an agreement in Kabul on an ambitious plan to demobilise 100,000 factional fighters.

The clashes between warlord militias, seen as the main threat to President Hamid Karzai's efforts to extend his influence into unruly provinces, was among the worst since the overthrow of the Taliban regime by US-led forces in late 2001.

The flare up followed reports that US forces in the south had held talks with officials of the former Taliban, whose guerrilla fighters they have been battling since its overthrow.

Karzai and a senior US official denied reports yesterday that former Taliban Foreign Minister Mullah Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil had been freed from US custody as part of the talks.

But an Afghan Foreign Ministry official in the south stuck by his original story that Muttawakil had been freed after helping to arrange the talks in the southern city of Kandahar.

"Time will prove that he has been released," he told Reuters.

"This is not true, this is absolutely not true, he has not been released," Karzai told reporters in Kabul, standing alongside US special envoy to Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad.

"Is this true?" he asked Khalilzad, who replied: "No, we have not released him yet."

A spokesman for the hardline Taliban, blamed for a wave of deadly attacks since August, told Reuters Muttawakil had contacted the Taliban on Wednesday for "secret talks".

Mullah Abdul Samad added that the former minister, considered a moderate who was handed over to US forces after surrendering last year, was making contact "at the behest of the Americans".

US military spokesman Colonel Rodney Davis declined to comment, saying it was a matter for the Afghan authorities, an indication perhaps Muttawakil was no longer in US custody.

Davis said he had read a report that Federal Bureau of Investigation officers had met "anti-coalition elements", but again could not confirm it.

Some Taliban officials told Reuters they had reports the talks may have involved the Taliban's former Interior Minister Mullah Abdul Razzak acting without consent of the organisation's elusive supreme leader Mullah Mohammad Omar.

Supreme Court Chief Justice Mawlavi Fazi Hadi Shinwari said it was government policy to leave the door open for Taliban whose hands were "not tainted with the blood of Muslims" and that Kabul had received a list of 30 Taliban members who wished to talk.