To cheers and applause, hundreds of troops from Afghanistan's fledgling national army took up positions on Thursday in the capital of a remote province overrun by a renegade commander a week ago.
The green-berated soldiers, sent to the central province of Ghor from neighbouring Herat to reassert central government authority, positioned themselves at Chaghcharan's airstrip and key governmental buildings taken over by Commander Salaam Khan.
There was no sign of resistance. Ghor governor Ibrahim Malikzada said Khan's soldiers had left the town on Wednesday ahead of the arrival of the Western-trained national army troops.
Khan's men forced Ghor's police chief, General Zaman, and military commander General Ahmad from the town last week after resisting central government attempts to disarm his militia forces and demanding a share in local power.
Combatants said 18 people were killed or wounded in the fighting, the latest incident in which local commanders have challenged President Hamid Karzai's efforts to assert his will in restive provinces and disarm factional fighters before elections supposed to be held in September.