Dostam and Rabbani's forces have been fighting in the northern Kunduz province for two days.
ISLAMABAD, Jan. 21 (News Agencies) - Fighting has broken out between rival factions of the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan, news agencies reported Monday.
A report of factional infighting in northern Afghanistan raised fears long-standing ethnic rivalries could again split the country after the defeat of the Northern Alliance's common enemy, the Taliban, the Afghan Islamic Press said Monday.
It said ethnic Uzbek warlord, Abdul Rashid Dostam's forces and ethnic Tajik fighters loyal to former Afghan president, Burhanuddin Rabbani, had been fighting in the northern Kunduz province for two days, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.
The clashes had broken out around Qala Zaal, 60 kilometers (38 miles) west of Kunduz town on Sunday and some 11 men have been killed and more than a dozen injured, the Pakistan-based news agency reported.
They were battling with heavy weaponry to take control of Zaal district, close to the Tajikistan border.
Kunduz town is under Rabbani's control but Dostam, deputy defense minister in Hamid Karzai's interim government, holds sway over the main northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif to the west.
The two factions were uneasy allies in the battle against Taliban from 1996 until the U.S. bombing in November.
They joined forces to help evict the Taliban from Mazar-e-Sharif and Kunduz with the help of U.S. air power, but relations between the two main groups in the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance have become strained.
Disagreements arose over who should take control of Kunduz even before the Taliban surrendered, and Dostam was bitter about being denied a post in the interim government until he was named deputy defense minister.
The fighting in the north will raise fears that Afghanistan's rival ethnic factions could splinter and turn against each other following the collapse of their common enemy the Taliban.
