KABUL, March 22: The Afghan government commander accused of killing a minister who was the son of a powerful provincial governor has fled fighting in which more than 100 people were reported killed, officials said on Monday.

The tank and gun battles that erupted on Sunday in the western city of Herat between troops loyal to Zahir Nayebzada, a commander recently appointed by President Hamid Karzai, and those of governor Ismail Khan, has ended, they said.

A defence ministry official in Kabul said Khan's forces were now in the control of Nayebzada's troops. "The fighting has ended, the division has been overrun," he said.

Khan's son, Civil Aviation Minister Mirwais Sadiq, died after a rocket-propelled grenade hit his car in Herat on Sunday. Khan's forces blamed Nayebzada.

"Nayebzada and his supporters have fled, we don't know where; some of his men surrendered to us," said Khan's spokesmen Ghulam Mohammad Masoan. He said 10 of Khan's men had been killed.

Nayebzada told Reuters on Sunday more than 100 people on both sides had died. He could not be reached on Monday. The Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press quoted sources in Herat as saying more than 100 had died and many more wounded. It said bodies were strewn around the base of Nayebzada's division and many dead and wounded had been brought to hospital.

Khan, a hardliner, has been at odds with Karzai's US-backed government in the past for failing to hand over tens of millions of dollars of customs revenues from Herat, which controls the bulk of Afghanistan's trade.

A veteran of the struggle against Soviet rule in the 1980s, Khan professes loyalty to Karzai but has often been accused of running a personal fiefdom in the west.

The fighting was among the worst between pro-government factions since Karzai was installed in power after US-led forces ousted the Taliban in 2001, and underscored his difficulties bringing stability to the war-ravaged country. -Reuters