Army, police clash in Afghanistan

2003-11-01 11:16

Kandahar, Afghanistan - A pitched battle between Afghan soldiers and police in southern Helmand province left two military commanders and as many as eight policemen dead, officials said on Saturday.

There were also reports that nine civilians were killed in the fighting.

Deputy provincial governor Haji Pir Mohammed said during the five-hour battle between the two groups on Friday, dozens of men fired rockets and heavy weapons in a residential area of Geriesh district, 150 kilometres west of Kandahar.

It was not immediately clear why the Afghan soldiers and police - both loyal to President Hamid Karzai's government - clashed nor who initiated fire.

"So far, we only know that the fighting began over a minor dispute," Mohammed said.

He said three policemen and two military commander were killed.

However, Haji Abdul Qadoos, the police chief of Geriesh district, told The Associated Press that in all eight police died in the fighting, including six who died when rockets fired by local soldiers slammed into a police headquarters.

Seventeen police officers were taken away by soldiers, he added.

Mohammed identified one of the dead Afghan commanders as Idrees, who has been closely working with US-led coalition forces in Helmand province to track down fugitives of the former Taliban regime and al-Qaida.

The fighting stopped only after US troops and helicopters were requested by provincial authorities to help control the situation, Mohammed said.

Mohammed said he was not aware whether the rockets fired by the police and Afghan army caused any civilian casualties.

But a local Afghan army official said three women and six male shop owners were also killed when rockets plowed into their homes and shops.

The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the situation in Geriesh was still tense, and authorities were negotiating with local army and police leaders to prevent any further fighting.

Clashes between the Afghan army and police are common in many parts of Afghanistan where Karzai's government has limited access, and where swathes of territory are controlled by rival warlords.

Elsewhere in Afghanistan, four rockets fired by unknown assailants landed in an empty field near the Jalalabad airport in the country's eastern Nangarhar province late on Friday, a police official said. No damage was reported.

- AP