Groups from the two main factions in the north vied for control of several villages in Samangan Province, 100 miles south of the city of Mazar-i-Sharif, according to one faction commander.
Umar Mansoor, a faction commander, also released video footage on Friday of four fighters he said carried out the attack, in a declaration that raised fresh questions of a possible split in the fractured Pakistani Taliban (TTP) leadership.
"For most of these factions' commanders, this is just a desk job," wrote Azaz-based cleric Yasser Abu Omar on Twitter.
Sometimes a rival faction buys a commander, and the village he controls along with him.
With Mullah Muhammad Omar acting only as the Taliban's spiritual head, the opportunity has emerged for an enterprising faction with a driven commander — as was the case with Mr. Duan — to unify or dominate the divided Afghan insurgency.
Elders from another province said today that it was possible that the commander's faction did not call in the airstrikes, but, in trying to prevent the convoy from getting to Kabul to see Mr. Karzai, may have forced it down a back road that provoked the suspicion of the Americans in the planes overhead.
Thousands of militants were killed over the first few months of 2014, as battles raged between Isis and the other rebel factions, with senior commanders on both sides kidnapped, tortured and murdered.
During his three-year interim presidency, Mr. Karzai created a cabinet that fairly reflected the country's political and ethnic factions — including military commanders who had led the fight against the Soviet occupation and, later, the Taliban.
According to a field commander of the faction overseeing the programme, the "culture of takfir" is a major impediment to getting fighters to combat groups such as Isis, especially if the faction is backed by western countries.
"It is a competition among rivals," said Faqir Muhammad, a gruff officer in a military faction controlled by Hajji Zahir, commander of one of three anti-Taliban armies in the region.
There appears to be a serious rupture at the top of the Palestinian faction Fatah, with former security commander Mohammed Dahlan denying he planned to stage a coup against President Mahmoud Abbas.
