29 May NY Times - Rise in Violence in North Shows Afghanistan’s Fragility by Abdul Waheed Wafa and Carlotta Gall.

Angry supporters of Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum, the ethnic Uzbek strongman, clashed with the police in the northern town of Shiberghan on Monday, leaving at least seven people dead and 34 wounded, officials said. The government sent army units to the area, anticipating further unrest.

Also in the north, a suicide bomber attacked a convoy of foreign security contractors, killing himself and two Afghan civilians. It was the fourth such attack in the north in the past two weeks.

The bombings in the relatively peaceful north indicated a rise in insurgent activity, and the violence in Shiberghan was a reminder of how tenuous Afghanistan’s internal stability remains, with former militia leaders like General Dostum still capable of rallying armed supporters to settle local power struggles..