KABUL -- Afghan President Hamid Karzai has hedged his bets with a new cabinet that seeks to balance competing claims, but doubts linger over how long the carve-up of power can satisfy rival ethnic groups and ambitious warlords.

Karzai virtually completed his ministerial line-up on Saturday after a power struggle that had briefly threatened a government seen as crucial to reconciling feuding factions and leading the country towards elections after 23 years of war.

Now the concern is whether the team of Western-educated technocrats and former mujahideen commanders will be stable enough to extend its writ to the provinces, where local barons have long relied on the gun to rule over their own fiefdoms.

"There is a lot of resentment. This may not cause problems in the short run because people are fed up with war," said Fazel Ahmad Manawi, deputy head of Afghanistan's Supreme Court.

"But in the long run, these worlords may be a headache for the central government. Let's not forget that many are still armed in Afghanistan and the government does not control all of the country," Manawi, an ethnic Tajik, told Reuters.

One area of concern is the wild north, where troops of the powerful ethnic Uzbek warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum have skirmished sporadically this year with forces of Commander Atta Mohammad, said to be close to Defense Minister Mohammad Fahim, a Tajik.

Dostum, Deputy Defense Minister in Karzai's first, interim post-Taleban administration, got no seat in the new cabinet.

His spokesman said Dostum was happy with the new line-up.

Aid agencies, meanwhile, say they are uncertain how the Dostum-Atta rivalry will play itself out.

"It is unclear how the power dynamics in the north will resolve themselves," said Paul O'Brien of aid agency care. "We are really concerned by the escalating pattern of violence in the north." Some other warlords, including Ismail Khan of western Herat Province, are reported to have declined government posts because they do not want to be away from their home turf and risk losing influence.

--- Power Dynamics --- Fahim's Tajik-dominated Northern Alliance, the key force in ousting the Taleban last year with U.S. help, remains firmly in power in new team the U.S.-backed Karzai has named to take Afghanistan to its first elections in 18 months time.

The Alliance retained defense and foreign affairs and added posts at the expense of the Pashtuns, Afghanistan's largest ethnic group. Two ministries that had previously been held by supporters of former king Zahir Shah -- civil aviation and tourism and public works -- switched to the Northern Alliance.

"I didn't expect anything different," said Fatima Gailani, a veteran political activist and supporter of the former king.

"The Northern Alliance are in control and they get what they want. The question is whether this cabinet is going to get us closer to democracy." Karzai also found himself having to placate the Alliance's Yunis Qanuni, who was miffed that his agreement to give up the powerful Interior Ministry to an ethnic Pashtun, Taj Mohammad Wardak, earned him only the education portfolio.

Karzai has now also named the influential Qanuni his special adviser on internal security.

Qanuni's allies dismiss speculation that his Tajik supporters, who form the backbone of police and security forces in Kabul, may rebel against the new government.

"Qanuni is a reasonable man. I do not think he is the type to cause headache for the government and risk destroying the relative peace and security we have," said Deputy Planning Minister Asghar Payman.

"If Wardak operates shrewdly and maintains good relations with Qanuni's supporters at the Interior Ministry, he is saved.

But if he tries to undermine them and tries to bring his own people to the ministry, he could cause insecurity," he said.