KABUL, April 7: The Afghan government said it would rush troops to a northern province to restore order after several districts were overrun by forces of a regional strongman on Wednesday in a fresh challenge to President Hamid Karzai.

The defence ministry said a battalion of troops would be sent to stop the fighting between forces of the provincial government in Faryab and those of northern strongman General Abdul Rashid Dostum, who is also an adviser to Hamid Karzai.

The ministry was meeting officials of the US-led military forces in Afghanistan to arrange for the troops to be flown to the province, spokesman General Zahir Azimy said. "The aim of sending these troops is to stop the fighting, preserve peace and stability and show the presence of the central government," he said.

It is the second time in less than a month that the government has decided to send in troops from the still infant national army to keep order in the troubled provinces and deal with unrest involving warlord militias targeted for disarmament.

The embattled governor of Faryab, Anayatullah Anayat, appealed for the troops, saying several districts had been overrun by forces of the ethnic Uzbek Dostum in a four-pronged overnight assault.

The commander of the provincial militia General Mohammad Hashim Habibi said Dostum's forces came by truck and horseback from neighbouring provinces and were backed by tanks. He said he had about 2,000 troops to defend the province.

Anayat said earlier his troops were outnumbered and many had been disarmed by Dostum's troops. He did not have any casualty figure, but said: "There are bound to have been deaths. Our soldiers have been putting tough resistance." Anayat said fighting was going on within 20 km (12 miles) from the provincial capital Maimana.

Karzai's spokesman Jawed Ludin said Anayat was the president's legitimate representative in Faryab and any moves against him would not be tolerated. "We will take every measure necessary to ensure the security and safety of the people of Faryab and the authority of the government," he said.

While Dostum remains an adviser to Karzai, his forces have been involved in several rounds of fighting over territory since the overthrow of the Taliban in late 2001. A federalist, he unsuccessfully opposed Karzai's bid for a strong presidency in a constitutional assembly in January.

Anayat charged that Dostum, whose private army is among those targeted for demobilisation by the central government, had launched the assault after Kabul turned down his demand to be appointed defence minister or army chief of staff.

He said several key roads linking Faryab with neighbouring provinces had been cut by the fighting, which he said was some of the worst in the province since the Taliban fell.

The fresh burst of factional fighting is bad news for Karzai, who needs to ensure security for elections due in September with the help of NATO-led peacekeepers, who currently number 6,400, and a US-led force whose main task is pursuing Taliban and al Qaeda militants which will soon number 15,500.

There were fierce clashes in the western city of Herat last month after forces of a commander appointed by Karzai killed the son of the provincial governor, who was also a cabinet minister. Karzai rushed 1,500 troops of the still tiny national army - which has a combat strength of only about 8,000 - to Herat. -Reuters