After a two-day battle which combatants said killed at least 61 people, an uneasy calm had returned yesterday to the capital of an eastern Afghan province where rival warlords are trying to exert control.

Town leaders said the artillery of Bacha Khan, a warlord who tried to take Gardez by force after being appointed governor of surrounding Paktia province, fell silent at dusk Thursday, and did not resume in the morning. They said Khan's forces had retreated into mountains outside of town.

Townspeople who had fled the fighting were returning to their homes and businesses, and the town centre was bustling again by midday yesterday.

Haji Saifullah, leader of the Gardez Shura, the town's tribal council which opposes Khan's appointment, said the fighting killed 20 fighters on the Shura side and 30 civilians. He claimed Khan's forces lost 50 men, but a Khan aide put their deaths at 11.

The Khan spokesman, Jilani, contacted by satellite telephone from a district of the town of 40,000 people, said the halt in fighting was a cease-fire, called to make prisoner exchanges and treat the wounded. Both sides claimed to have taken dozens of prisoners.

Saifullah said a government delegation was arriving from Kabul, the capital, to try to negotiate a solution to the dispute.

There were fears that conflict could boil over again. The Shura sides's intelligence chief, Allahmohammed Yari, said he was hearing reports that Khan's forces had set up roadblocks south of Gardez and were confiscating cars from townspeople.

"We have no trust in Bacha Khan's people," said a police officer, Abdul Malek.

The factional fighting was heaviest in Afghanistan since the interim government of Hamid Karzai was installed Dec. 22. The battle added urgency to Karzai's appeals for a multinational peacekeeping force to expand its deployment to outside Kabul to stop violent squabbling between powerful local warlords.