Thursday November 29 7:43 PM ET

Alliance: Battle Rages Near Kandahar

By KATHY GANNON, Associated Press Writer

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - Anti-Taliban fighters battled the hard-line militia Thursday on the outskirts of Kandahar, the ousted regime's last bastion, a key commander said. The Taliban's supreme leader declared the decisive battle ``has now begun.''

Witnesses 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.

The 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.''

In 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.

``I can accept that they have entered the province, but not in a large movement,'' he told reporters.

Speaking 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.''

The Taliban don't allow Western journalists into Kandahar and residents could not be contacted by telephone.

Seeking to rally his followers, Taliban supreme leader Mullah Mohammed Omar urged his commanders in a radio message to defend their dwindling territory.

``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.

Kandahar 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.

``They gave the impression that they are ready to fight,'' said a man who identified himself by the single name of Ataullah.

However, Stufflebeem said it was unclear how many Taliban leaders would stick with Omar, calling the Islamic movement ``fractured.''

``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.

In 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.

This 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.

Forces 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 11/2 miles of the Kandahar airport.

More 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.

The 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.

Taliban 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.

President 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.

In other developments:

- A U.S. official in Washington, speaking on condition of anonymity, said there were credible reports that Taliban intelligence chief Qari Ahmadulla had defected to northern alliance rebels. But a defense official said Ahmadulla was still negotiating for his surrender in Kandahar.

- 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.

- 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.

- Three Russian cargo planes with food, medicine and equipment for relief operations flew to Afghanistan, officials in Moscow said.

In the north, the Red Cross and local health authorities continued clearing the bodies of foreign fighters loyal to bin Laden who were killed when they rebelled against their northern alliance captors.

The fighters had been taken prisoner by the alliance but rose up in a three-day rebellion that ended Tuesday at a fortress near Mazar-e-Sharif. Two Afghans who were collecting bodies were wounded Thursday when survivors opened fire on them, according to Simon Brooks, head of the Red Cross delegation in Mazar-e-Sharif.

CIA officer Johnny ``Mike'' Spann was killed in the rebellion and five U.S. soldiers were wounded when a U.S. bomb meant to suppress the rebellion landed off-target.

-- Anonymous, November 30, 2001