A newly elected Afghan parliamentarian was killed Sunday when a row about a fire in a woodyard erupted into an armed clash that left four men dead, government officials said.
Esmatullah Muhabat, who won a seat in the lower house in parliament for eastern Laghman province, was the first MP to be killed since the September 18 election for Afghanistan's first national assembly in about three decades.
The fighting started after a businessman in Laghman captured one of Muhabat's men in connection with a blaze at his firewood outlet late Saturday, an interior ministry spokesman said.
He handed the man to police, Yousuf Stanizai said. Muhabat led a band of his men to confront the businessman early Sunday.
"This morning at 7:00 am, as a result, fighting erupted between the two. Three of Esmatullah's guys were killed in the fighting and he himself was injured and later died," Stanizai told AFP.
"The fighting has ceased and the area has been sealed off by police," a spokesman for the provincial governor said. He had said earlier that two men had been killed and three wounded.
Muhabat was one of thousands of mujahedin (holy warriors) who fought against the Soviet occupation between 1979 and 1989.
He was arrested by US forces last year for suspected links to the hard-line Taleban regime that was removed from power in a US-led invasion in late 2001, and spent a year in detention at the main US base at Bagram.
He was released four months ago and surrendered some weapons as part of a UN-backed disarmament programme.
Despite the completion of the programme, many militia groups linked to mujahedin still maintain private armies. A second phase is under way to persuade these groups to disband. Muhabat took the third of four seats from Laghman for parliament's lower house.
The province, which neighbours Kabul, is dominated by warlords and has seen some violence linked to a Taleban-led insurgency but not as much as other provinces in the east and south.
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