KABUL, Feb 6: Afghan interim leader Hamid Karzai travelled to the western city of Herat on Wednesday for talks with powerful regional commander Ismail Khan, officials said.

Press department official Abdul Mateen said Karzai was accompanied by three ministers in his first trip to a provincial capital since his administration took office in December.

Karzai was due to meet Herat governor Khan, a member of the Northern Alliance, but no details on the purpose of the surprise visit were announced.

The visit comes amid growing concern about unrest in the provinces, where Karzai has yet to fully establish the writ of his six-month administration, which was installed with UN backing following the collapse of the Taliban.

Khan, an ethnic Tajik commander, has voiced his support for Karzai’s government and denied reports that he is receiving military aid from neighbouring Iran across the western border.

“Iran is not conducting any interference here,” the celebrated veteran of the anti-Soviet war was quoted as saying in the New York Times last month.

After the Soviet-installed Afghan regime collapsed in 1992, Khan made himself the “Amir of Herat”, bringing peace to the city while the rest of the country was gripped by factional fighting.

He opened up trade links with Iran and Pakistan, and Herat flourished in relative peace under moderate Islamic law. But the civil war soon found its way to his fiefdom in 1995.

Upon the emergence of the Taliban hardline militia, Khan initially appeared poised to capture their southern base of Kandahar, but he was soon routed and fled into Iran.

In late 1996 he made a comeback, setting up front lines northeast of Herat, until in 1997 a local commander switched sides to the Taliban and handed Khan over to the Islamic militia.

After more than a year in jail, Khan escaped and returned to Iran, where he once again set about mobilising his forces for guerrilla attacks on the Taliban around Herat.

He ended his exile last year before the September 11 attacks in the US, which led to US military intervention and the Taliban’s collapse in December.

He has also denied receiving any US military assistance in the days following Sept 11.—AFP