KABUL, Aug 16: Tensions ran high in western Afghanistan on Monday as forces loyal to powerful Herat governor Ismael Khan surrounded a provincial capital after capturing it briefly, police said.

"Last (Sunday) night the forces of Ismael Khan captured Qila and held it for some time, but they were forced out of the town and are now one or two kilometers from its outskirts," police chief of Badghis province, Gen Amir Shah, told the Afghan Islamic Press (AIP).

The latest push capped a weekend of deadly fighting between Khan's troops and the forces of his long-time rival Amanullah Khan in which at least 22 people were killed.

The clashes, coming just eight weeks before Afghans go to the polls to choose a president, prompted the central government to dispatch two army battalions and two police battalions to Herat province, with US-led forces helping to fly them in from Kabul.

Herat is the largest of Afghanistan's western provinces, bordering Iran. Badghis lies northeast of Herat. Some 400 troops loyal to Khan, a former anti-Soviet warrior hero now one of Afghanistan's richest and most powerful warlords, attacked Badghis' capital Qila on Sunday night, police chief Shah told AIP.

Another 600 of Khan's men were on their way to back them up, Shah said. Three soldiers were missing from the Sunday night clash but there were no confirmations of casualties so far. -AFP