QUETTA, Dec 7: Former Kandahar governor Gul Agha took control of his former official residence in the city on Friday following clashes with an embittered anti-Taliban commander, a tribal elder said.

“Gul Agha is right now in Kandahar city. He is in the governor’s house. He wants the job so he wants the house,” said Abdul Khaliq, a former Afghan consul general in Quetta.

Gul Agha’s forces had been engaged in fighting with troops of former Mujahedin commander Mullah Naqibullah, who had been handed control of the city after the surrender of the Taliban. However, the fighting has since ceased, Khaliq said.

“At the beginning of the day there was a little bit of fighting, but right now the situation is calm,” he told reporters.

Earlier a key lieutenant of Agha said the former governor found the deal brokered by Hamid Karzai unacceptable and was determined to take control of the city by force if necessary.

Gul Lali said that while Agha was in favour of Karzai’s appointment as interim Afghan leader, he could not support the agreement he had struck with the Taliban.

“We are against this consideration between Karzai and the Taliban,” he said.

“(Taliban leader) Mullah (Mohammad) Omar is the first hand of Al-Qaeda. We are not against Karzai but we cannot support this agreement,” he added.

“We will try to take control of the city so Gul Agha can be in control of Kandahar again.”

Gul Agha’s forces took control of the Kandahar airport on Thursday night.

Khaliq called for a shura to be established to settle the differences between Agha and Naqibullah.

“When I spoke to Mr Karzai I said we needed to bring all the commanders together. I am sure this problem can be solved in three or four days.”

STARVATION DEATHS: Hunger and cold have killed 177 people, the majority of them children, over the last four weeks in a refugee camp near Kunduz in northern Afghanistan, the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) reported Friday.