Afghanistan soldiers retake base

KABUL, Afghanistan – Government troops intervened in Afghanistan’s latest outbreak of deadly fighting between warlords, flying from the capital to the far west on U.S. and NATO airplanes to retake an air base contested in the violence, officials said Sunday.

Meanwhile, in another illustration of the insecurity dogging the run-up to October elections, Taliban militants killed a community leader for encouraging people to vote and gunned down six Afghan soldiers at a checkpoint, officials said.

The U.S.-trained Afghan National Army’s move in the far western province of Herat was the latest instance of President Hamid Karzai trying to quell local conflicts in a country where large areas are controlled by warlords and their leaders.

And though the soldiers seized the contested air base at Shindand, 370 miles west of the capital, Kabul, battles continued between the forces of Herat Gov. Ismail Khan and several rival warlords.

A statement from President Hamid Karzai’s office said he was “pleased” with the swift action of the army. Further operations by the warring militias “will not be tolerated,” it said.

But it was not clear how Karzai would resolve a dispute that exposes anew how warlords – not the central government – control swathes of the country more than two years after the fall of the Taliban.

Khan, an ethnic Tajik, has long dominated Herat. Amanullah and at least two other commanders launched simultaneous attacks against Khan’s forces around the province on Friday. They have voiced support for Karzai, a fellow Pashtun.

But some officials in Kabul were quick to denounce them.

“The militia attacked Herat’s legal government,” said Mohammed Zahir Azimi, a spokesman for the Tajik-led Defense Ministry. “It is an illegal action that benefits Afghanistan’s enemies.”

The United Nations is concerned that the failure to control the warlords leaves Afghanistan’s first-ever presidential election on Oct. 9 vulnerable to intimidation.