Several hundred supporters of a detained Shi'ite Hazara militia commander took to the streets of Kabul for a second consecutive day on November 26, blocking roads in the western part of the Afghan capital.
The demonstrators are protesting the detention of Alipoor, who goes by one name and leads a Shi’ite militia in central Afghanistan.
It was not immediately clear what Alipoor is accused of.
Kabul police chief Sayed Mohammad Roshandel said the protesters set fire to police check posts and were clashing with police forces.
"I can hear sporadic sound of shooting form the area," said lawmaker Nasrullah Sadeqizada, who lives near the area where the protest is taking place.
On November 25, a number of police checkpoints were torched and several officers were wounded after a similar protest in the Dasht-e Barchi district, a predominately Hazara neighborhood in Kabul, turned violent.
Deputy Interior Minister Akhtar Ibrahimi later said that Alipoor was leading a group of about 350 illegally armed men and that he was under the custody of Afghanistan’s National Directorate of Security (NDS).
Alipoor’s supporters claim that he has been fighting the Taliban in parts of Maidan Wardak, Ghor, and Daikundi provinces.
A spate of bomb attacks in Kabul’s predominately Hazara areas, claimed by the Islamic State extremist group, has fed anger among members of the minority toward the Afghan government.
