Attack shatters Afghan cease-fire
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Disarmed Afghan militiamen wearing traditional Afghan shalwar kameez tunics parade in Kunduz.
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KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) -- Attackers fired rockets and machine guns at a pickup truck ferrying passengers to a northern Afghan town, killing 10 people including two children, a local commander has said.
The passengers were riding in the vehicle from Samangan city when they were ambushed in Shamar in Samangan province, said Ahmad Khan, a local commander under Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum, the Uzbek warlord who is a major force in the north.
Khan said the pickup had likely been targeted because the attackers suspected an important commander was riding in the truck.
An estimated 12 attackers fired rockets, Kalashnikovs and heavy machine guns at the vehicle in Friday's attack, killing the two children, three women and five men, Khan said. One other passenger was injured, he said.
Northern Afghanistan was the scene this month of heavy fighting between Dostum's forces and fighters from rival Tajik warlord Gen. Atta Mohammed, in some of the worst recent factional violence.
A tenuous cease-fire was declared, but reports of tension persist in the region where the central Kabul government holds limited influence.
The government of President Hamid Karzai did enjoy some encouragi9ng signs that its powerbase was spreading beyond the capital Kabul.
Nearly 1,000 former Afghan fighters in Kunduz in the north of the country showed their commitment Friday to laying down their weapons at the start of a U.N.-sponsored disarmament program.
The fighters are members of militias loyal to local warlords, and their demobilization is an important part of Karzai's effort to expand his government's control of the country.
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