(10 Oct 2003) Char Bolek - about 20 kms West of Mazar i Sharif and 10km East of Char Gumbaz, scene of recent fighting
1. Various vehicles including tank head off down road.
2. Tank driving down road, militia fighters (Rasheed Dostum's men) standing around
3. Truck full of Dostum's fighters
4. Same truck passes camera
5. Fighters in back of truck
6. Closer shot of same
7. Minibus with fighters in back
8. 2 minibuses drive past, fighters directing traffic
9. Tank drives past, followed by freight truck
STORYLINE:
Soldiers lounged on their tanks sipping tea in the sunshine and listening to the radio on Friday, a day after rival warlords reached a truce following battles that killed dozens of people in northern Afghanistan.
There were no reports of new clashes following the cease-fire, which was signed late Thursday after the bloodiest fighting in northern Afghanistan in months. Soldiers and residents expressed hope that the deal would stick after a string of earlier truces signed over the past two years fell apart.
"We are all very happy the fighting has stopped," said Hashim Khan, a commander for warlord Atta Mohammed, as he sat in the middle of a green field full of cotton plants, their shining white flowers ready for harvest. The field was the site of pitched battles hours earlier near Char Gumbaz village.
"Now is the time in Afghanistan for reconstruction and peace. It is not the time for fighting. This has been very bad. My side will never be the first to break the cease-fire, never."
Around him were dozens of his fighters, some in their late teens, dressed in dust-covered shalwar kameez - traditional baggy pants and long tunic - and turbans. They lay amid their AK-47 assault rifles and RPG-7 rocket launchers.
Char Gumbaz village escaped much of the fighting and there was little damage to its handful of mud huts.
About three kilometers (nearly two miles) away across the field were the old Russian-made T-62 tanks and artillery of rival warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum. They were quiet.
Under the terms of the truce, both sides are supposed to move their weaponry 30 kilometers (18 miles) back from the front line before Saturday and then return them to their bases.
Khan said he had not been ordered to move back.
On the other side, Dostum's commander, Mohammad Nabi, said he had just been told to withdraw from the battlefield. He called out to some 100 soldiers around him to back up and prepare to go.
Much of the fighting has occurred about 20 kilometers (12 miles) west of Mazar-e-Sharif, home to 1.5 million people and scene of some of the bloodiest battles in the U.S.-led war to oust Afghanistan's former Taliban regime.
The United Nations said the fighting that began Wednesday resulted in a "high numbers of casualties," but did not have precise figures. Though one side said more than 60 died, the other said it was fewer.
A spokesman for the U.N. mission in Afghanistan, Manoel de Almeida e Silva, said the conflict was "very intense," with both sides using tanks and mortars.
It was not immediately clear what sparked the fighting. A government spokesman in Kabul said it was most likely due to disputes over land or access to water, the cause of repeated clashes in the past two years.
Both commanders, Khan and Nabi, accused each other of starting the fighting and said it was because of ambitions to control more territory.
and his neck bandaged after a tank round slammed into the ground near his family's hut.
"This fighting is terrible. Why has the international community not stopped this. Please stop this fighting," he cried.
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