Troops move on Taliban

KABUL, Afghanistan -- Anti-Taliban fighters battled the Islamic militia Thursday on the outskirts of Kandahar, the ousted regime's last bastion, a key northern alliance commander said. The Taliban's supreme leader declared the decisive battle "has now begun." \nWitnesses described heavy bombing around the southern city over the past two days, and the Taliban reportedly hanged an Afghan man there Thursday after accusing him of helping Americans call in airstrikes. \nThe northern alliance's deputy defense minister, Bismillah Khan, told The Associated Press anti-Taliban fighters reached the eastern edge of Kandahar, the Taliban's birthplace and the only city still under their control, and "there is heavy fighting going on." \nIn Washington, Pentagon spokesman Rear Adm. John Stufflebeem said he could not confirm or deny that anti-Taliban fighters had entered Kandahar. He indicated northern alliance troops might be in the province of the same name, which covers a large area of southern Afghanistan. \n"I can accept that they have entered the province, but not in a large movement," he told reporters. \nSpeaking from the capital of Kabul in a series of calls, Khan said his information was based on radio communications with his commanders at the scene. He spoke in Dari and used the word "shahr," which means city, in reporting on the location of the troops. The Dari word for province is "wilaiyat." \nThe Taliban don't allow Western journalists into Kandahar and residents could not be contacted by telephone. \nSeeking to rally his followers, Taliban supreme leader Mullah Mohammed Omar urged his commanders in a radio message to defend their dwindling territory. \n"The fight has now begun. It is the best opportunity to achieve martyrdom," a Taliban official quoted Omar as saying. "Now we have the opportunity to fight against the infidels," meaning non-Muslims. The Taliban official spoke by telephone from the border town of Spinboldak on condition of anonymity. \nKandahar residents arriving at the Pakistani border town of Chaman said the Taliban appeared determined to defend Kandahar rather than abandon it as they did Kabul, Herat and other cities. \n"They gave the impression that they are ready to fight," said a man who identified himself by the single name of Ataullah. \nBut Stufflebeem said it was unclear how many Taliban leaders would stick with Omar, calling the Islamic movement "fractured." \n"There are some commanders who are negotiating for surrender of their forces. There are others who might take Mullah Omar's orders literally and intend to dig in defensively and fight to the death," Stufflebeem said. \nIn the center of Kandahar, at an intersection called Martyr's Crossing, the Taliban hanged a man they accused of pointing out potential bombing targets after he was caught speaking on a satellite telephone, the Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press reported. \nThis week, the alliance's foreign minister, Abdullah, said the alliance was dispatching Pashtun commanders to the south to work with Pashtuns who have rebelled against the Taliban. Some Pashtuns, Afghanistan's dominant group, are now coordinating operations with the alliance, which is mostly made up of ethnic Tajiks and Uzbeks. \nForces loyal to Mullah Naqib, a Pashtun guerrilla commander in the war against the Soviets, and others allied with a former Kandahar governor, Gul Aga, have been moving on Kandahar for days. Gul Aga's fighters claim they are within 1 1/2 miles of the Kandahar airport. \nMore than 1,000 U.S. Marines began setting up a base in the desert of southern Afghanistan last weekend in preparation for a showdown with the Taliban. \nThe Taliban had controlled about 95 percent of Afghanistan before the northern alliance, backed by punishing U.S. airstrikes, forced them to abandon Kabul and most of the country this month. \nTaliban fighters withdrew to the ethnic Pashtun areas of the south where their movement was organized in the early 1990s. Taliban officials now claim to control four of the 30 Afghan provinces. \nPresident Bush launched military operations against Afghanistan on Oct. 7 after the Taliban refused to hand over Osama bin Laden, the main suspect in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States. \nIn other developments: \n• At U.N.-sponsored talks in Germany, the northern alliance made a major concession that could pave the way for international peacekeepers to restore order in Afghanistan. The alliance dropped objections to an international force to help secure the peace during an interim administration that will govern until a council of tribal elders meets in March. \n• Alliance forces have captured Ahmed Abdel-Rahman, a bin Laden follower whose father is jailed in the United States for plotting to blow up New York's World Trade Center in 1993, according to several sources including U.S. officials and a lawyer. \n• Three Russian cargo planes with food, medicine and equipment for relief operations flew to Afghanistan, officials in Moscow said.