KABUL, December 1 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Reports from Herat province in western Afghanistan said forces loyal to Commander Amanullah Khan have gained control of Shindand airbase in the south of the province.

Reports also spoke of fierce fighting between Amanullah's forces and troops of Herat governor Ismail Khan near Shindand airport since Saturday, November 30, near the airbase.

Amanullah, a Pashtun, had control over areas near the airbase and accuses Ismail Khan of violating the rights of Pashtuns in western Afghanistan and unleashing reprisal attacks against them over alleged support to ousted Taliban.

Ismail Khan, on his part, counter-argues by branding Amanullah an outlawed warlord who is involved in smuggling and assaults on innocent civilians.

The latest developments comes after a report issued by Human Rights Watch charging Ismail Khan with violating human rights.

The organization also asserted that Ismail Khan's prisons are packed by political prisoners, an accusation Khan has refuted.

Herat is one of Afghanistan's strategic provinces on the borders with Iran and Turkmenistan.

American representative in Afghanistan Zelman Khalil Zad and other western parties have accused Ismail Khan of receiving money and arms from Iran and not cooperating with the government of Hamid Karzai although his son is serving as civil aviation minister in the interim cabinet.

It seems that pushing Amanullah to control Shindand airport is part of indirect American pressures in Ismail Khan who is refusing to cooperate fully with Washington and repeatedly asked that U.S. forces leave Afghanistan.

In a related development, U.S. forces dropped seven bombs on western Afghanistan Sunday, December 1, close to the scene of the fierce clash between Amanullah and Ismail Khan forces that left at least 26 people dead or injured, a U.S. military spokeswoman said.

Lieutenant Tina Kroske said the B-52 bombs were dropped after a U.S. special forces patrol was targeted by unknown attackers near the city of Shindand.

"They called in close air support so they could attempt to break away, seven B-52 bombs were dropped and the special forces managed to break contact," Kroske told Agence France-Presse (AFP).

There were no US casualties.

Kroske said the deployment of the B-52s in the area was not an attempt to intervene in conflict between Afghan forces.

"There was green-on-green (inter-Afghan) fighting in the vicinity but special forces were not involved. We do not get involved in green-on-green, in fact we discourage it."

The fighting near Shindand follows an attack by Ismail Khan's forces on a Pashtun community in October in which two civilians were killed.

After the first attack the Pashtuns dispatched a delegation to Kabul to urge President Karzai to replace Ismail Khan as governor.

"We spoke to the government and the central government has ordered both sides to stop fighting, but he doesn't want to," Khan said.

The latest conflict comes as President Karzai heads to Germany to attend a conference to assess security and reconstruction in the country one year after the fall of Taliban.

He will attend a meeting in Bonn, where a power-sharing deal was struck last December between Afghanistan's main factions to pave the way for peace and democracy after two decades of war.

In the wake of the sustained conflict, Afghanistan remains dominated by heavily-armed warlords who resolve ethnic, political and territorial disputes through violence.

The Tajik-dominated government of Karzai, himself a Pashtun, has had little success in bringing regional leaders into line.

Meanwhile, six bombs were discovered Sunday in a busy residential neighborhood of Kabul, a government official told AFP, in the latest in a series of security incidents in the Afghan capital.

Interior ministry spokesman Paktia Wal said the devices, which may have been attached to timers, were discovered at the same location in the Taimanee district, a sprawling suburb in the west of the city.

"Six bombs, shaped like clocks, were seized in Taimanee. An investigation is going on and the bombs have been sent for technical checks," Wal said.

A spokesman for the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) which has patrolled the capital since the fall of Taliban said he could confirm the discovery, but ISAF was not involved.

The Afghan capital was hit by a series of explosions earlier this year culminating in a car bomb attack on September 5 which killed 30 people.

In November, security officials said they foiled an attempt to destroy the main power station supplying Kabul while last week rockets struck an ISAF base on the outskirts of the city just days before another missile landed near several key government ministries.

In a separate development, security forces in the principal eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad Sunday said they had arrested eight people reportedly linked to a string of rocket attacks in the area.

Jalalabad security chief Haji Ajab Shah told AFP that the eight had been arrested but was unable to confirm a state media report that the men were linked to al-Qaeda.

Several rockets were fired into the city in September, landing near an international aid agency compound.