6 Reportedly Killed in Afghan Factional Clash

At least six people were killed in fighting between forces loyal to Afghanistan’s defense minister and soldiers allied with his deputy, a Pakistani-based Afghan news agency said Thursday.

But a spokesman for one faction denied that there had been any such clashes, which the Afghan Islamic Press agency said erupted Wednesday night in Zal, about 40 miles west of the northern Afghan city of Kunduz.

The news agency, quoting sources in the area, said fighting still raged Thursday between forces loyal to Defense Minister Gen. Mohammed Qassim Fahim and those allied with his deputy, Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum. It said an unspecified number of fighters had been wounded.

It said Dostum’s forces attacked Zal Fort but that Fahim’s Jamiat-i-Islami group repulsed the attack.

But Dostum spokesman Faizullah Zaki said, “There has been no fighting at all.” The news agency said that the divided forces had clashed frequently in the past. It quoted a Jamiat source as saying 250 fighters had been sent to Zal on Thursday morning to reinforce the town’s defenses and evict any Dostum troops.

Meanwhile, a British surveillance group of Royal Marines was involved in a firefight in eastern Afghanistan on Thursday, in its first direct engagement with suspected enemy fighters, a marine spokesman said.

At least two enemy fighters were hit, but their fate was not clear, marine spokesman Lt. Col. Ben Curry said at the allied headquarters at Bagram air base, north of Kabul, the capital.

Ten rounds were fired at the covert marine surveillance group in the troubled Khowst region after a car carrying three men pulled up near their post, Curry said. “We fired back in self-defense. At least two people were hit,” he said.

Curry said a second car arrived and evacuated two casualties. No one in the 12-member marine observation team was hurt.

Also Thursday, more than 500 Taliban followers captured during the U.S.-led military campaign last year were freed, officials said.

The mass release from the Sheberghan prison in northern Afghanistan was in compliance with an order issued by interim Prime Minister Hamid Karzai.