Around 1,000 fighters were disarmed at the weekend, Dostam told reporters Sunday in Aqcha in his home province of Jawzjan, 380 kilometres (240 miles) northwest of Kabul.

Rifles and ammunition were collected from the militiamen in five Jawzjan districts and brought to Aqcha for transportation to Mazar-i-Sharif, northern Afghanistan's main city, 100 kilometres (62 miles) to the east.

Dostam said the disarmed men were likely to be sent to Kabul to join the new Afghan army, which currently numbers 5,500 against a planned eventual strength of 70,000.

Dostam's efforts are separate from an internationally-backed national program to disarm, demobilise and reintegrate some 100,000 militiamen across Afghanistan.

Dostam, an Uzbek warlord and former communist general, said he had appointed 200 militiamen to take responsibility for security in the five disarmed districts.

He said his men would fight anyone who refused to disarm, adding that he had given one reluctant local commander a 24-hour deadline to hand over his weapons.

"I don't have any enemies here and I will give orders to my soldiers to start disarming in Mazar-i-Sharif and Balkh province," said the general.

Dostam said he signed an agreement last month with the Kabul-based National Security Council to remove all his armed men from Mazar-i-Sharif, where clashes between rival militias have left dozens dead this year.

Dostam, head of the Uzbek Junbish militia, and his rival General Atta Mohammad, chief of the Tajik Jamiat force, have been vying for control of northern Afghanistan along with a third ethnic militia, the Hazaras' Hezb-i Wahdat.

Mohammad last week rejected Dostam's plan to remove both of their militias and troops from Mazar-i-Sharif.

Disarming 100,000 militiamen, rebuilding the army and reining in local warlords are priorities for President Hamid Karzai in his efforts to improve security and extend his government's control to the warlord-ruled provinces.

Karzai is trying to make the defence ministry more representative of the country's ethnic and regional mix to pave the way for the launch of the planned national disarmament program.

Militiamen have been reluctant to hand over weapons to the ministry because of the dominance of Tajik Defence Minister Mohammad Qasim Fahim and his fellow Tajiks.

WAR.WIRE