Mazar-i-Sharif: Upto 50 militiamen were killed or wounded on October 8 in fighting between rival militias in troubled Northern Afghanistan, faction officials said.

General Atta Mohammad, leader of the mainly ethnic Tajik Jamiat faction, said 50 of his men were wounded or killed in fighting with rival militiamen from the mainly Uzbek Junbish group headed by Deputy Defence Minister Abdul Rashid Dostam.

The fighting erupted in and around the town of Fayzabad, halfway Mazar-i-Sharif and Dostam's stronghold of Sheberghan 120 km to the West, Jamiat and Junbish officials said.

Junbish official Sayed Nurullah, a deputy of Dostam, said the fighting started after Jamiat militiamen attacked a Junbish commander travelling towards Mazar-i-Sharif and was still continuing with heavy and light weapons.

Nurullah said three Junbish were killed and four injured in the initial attack.

Junbish had sent reinforcements to the area, Mohammad and Nurullah said.

News of the fighting prompted shopkeepers in Mazar-i-Sharif to down shutters as locals feared the clashes would spread to the city, witnesses said.

Former Communist General Dostam and his rival Mohammad have been vying for control of Northern Afghanistan along with a third ethnic Hazara militia, Hezb-i Wahdat.

Dozens of people have been killed this year in clashes between the various factions.

Agencies