Cease-Fire Reached in Afghan City

GARDEZ, Afghanistan —  Afghan and U.N. mediators, joined by U.S. officials, extracted a conditional cease-fire agreement Sunday from two rival tribal warlords in this eastern Afghan town that was rocked by two days of fighting last week.

With factional fighting threatening the national government’s efforts to assert control throughout the country, the delegation hopes to avert more tribal clashes in Gardez, a town of about 40,000 that is the capital of Paktia, a strategic border province. U.S. forces want to ensure that Al Qaeda fugitives cannot flee through Paktia’s border passes into neighboring Pakistan.

On Wednesday and Thursday, soldiers for warlord Bacha Khan exchanged artillery fire with forces loyal to Gardez’s tribal council, which bitterly opposes Khan’s appointment as provincial governor. At least 61 people were killed.

Just before meeting the mediators, Khan said he was ready to fight on to assert his rights as governor--an appointment that was initially self-declared but was later sanctioned by the government of interim Prime Minister Hamid Karzai.

“I am officially the governor. . . . I am ready for more fighting,” Khan said, gesturing toward 200 of his soldiers standing near a mud-walled outpost outside of Gardez, where the delegation traveled to meet him. “You can see my fighters.”

Tribal council leaders say Khan is corrupt and brutal and have appealed for another governor.

During a break in the talks, Khan said he had agreed to a request by mediators to hold off until Friday on any new assault on Gardez, 60 miles south of the Afghan capital, Kabul. But Khan said he would resume the attack if he was not satisfied with the pace of prisoner exchanges and return of the bodies of slain fighters.

Mediation efforts were to continue today.

Townspeople said U.S. aircraft dropped leaflets Saturday night urging an end to the fighting, the worst clashes between rival warlords since Karzai’s government took office in late December.

“We are all in Afghanistan,” the leaflets said in Dari and Pashto, the two local languages. “We must be united and one together.”

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Beginning in stories published in 2006, the Afghan warlord Bacha Khan is identified as Pacha Khan Zadran. (Second reference is “Pacha Khan.”)

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