A soldier mishandled a mortar and the shell exploded, killing 13 troops and injuring nine others in northern Afghanistan, a warlord in the region said Monday. Meanwhile, rival Afghan factions traded fire with automatic weapons and rocket launchers on Monday, wounding at least two civilians in the latest round of fighting in the north of the country, a military commander said. The mortar was among five truckloads of weapons collected during a disarmament drive in Jozjan province, said Abdul Rashid Dostum, a warlord in the region whose soldiers were killed in the blast. "One soldier was not experienced and he threw the mortar shell, and this caused the explosion," said Dostum, who is also a security adviser to President Hamid Karzai. The fighting erupted just before dawn in Faryab province's Pashtun Kot district between forces loyal to warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum and those of his rival, Atta Mohammed, said Gen. Farooq Khan, one of Mohammed's commanders. Speaking from the provincial capital, Maimana, Khan blamed Dostum's forces for launching the attack in a bid to secure territory. Dostum, however, denied there had been any fighting and told The Associated Press by telephone he had been in radio contact with his commander in the area. Khan said two farmers were wounded in the crossfire. He described the fighting as intense. Violence pitting forces loyal to Dostum, an ethnic Uzbek, against fighters loyal to Mohammed, an ethnic Tajik, has plagued much of northern Afghanistan over the last year. President Hamid Karzai's government, its influence largely confined to Kabul, has not been able to end the skirmishes. Warlords control most of Afghanistan and their private armies don't answer to the central government. **PHOTO CAPTION*** Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai. (AFP/File/Janek Skarzynski)