A clash in Mazar-e-Sharif, Balkh province, started late Saturday night and ended on Sunday night, nearly 20 hours after security forces surrounded the residence of Nizamuddin Qaisari, the former police chief of Faryab�s Qaisar district. The house was in Police District 5 (PD5) of Mazar-e-Sharif.

Gen. Mohammad Ajmal Fayez, the provincial police chief, claimed that 150 illegally-armed men affiliated with Qaisari had recently destabilized the security situation in the city and therefore an arrest warrant was issued.

The fighting started around 11:30 pm ( local time) on Saturday night and continued through Monday, with Army Special Forces and Afghan military helicopters battling Qaisari�s forces.

On Monday Fayez said that security forces had discovered eight bodies of Qaisari�s fighters and had captured 30 during the fighting, and that Qaisari�s house was in the control of security forces.

He also said that Nizamuddin Qaisari has escaped, but forces were searching for him.

On Monday sources from the Junbish party said that Qaisari is alive and has been transferred to Jawzjan province, but Bashir Ahmad Tayanj, a spokesman for the Junbish party said: We don�t have any information about Qaisari and don�t know where he is, adding: We didn�t even know the house where he was staying when Afghan forces launched the operation.

TOLOnews reporter, Sharif Amiry on Monday said that a number of the nearby houses were damaged in the fighting and relatives of the killed came in the morning near to the house in hopes of gathering the bodies of the dead.

The special forces have blocked roads close to the house where Qaisari was living, Amiry said.

Qaisari was arrested in July by Afghan commandos after being accused of insulting the government, employing illegally-armed men and violating human rights. He was held under house arrest by the NDS-never fully incarcerated-and had been recently released.

Qaisari�s job had been suspended and a travel ban had been put on him, according to a source.

Before his release, Qaisari appeared at a ceremony at the residence of first Vice President General Abdul Rashid Dostum�s residence in Kabul where he met a number of his supporters.