Coalition forces tighten grip on Kandahar

United States warplanes continued to bomb the Taliban's last stronghold of Kandahar yesterday as coalition-backed opposition forces moved towards the southern city and closed in on suspected hideouts of Osama bin Laden in the east of Afghanistan.

In the eastern city of Jalalabad, local commanders said that the US government has promised military supplies, logistical support and money to pro-western mujahedin fighters, in anticipation of an assault on an al-Qa'ida hideout in the White Mountains, where Mr bin Laden is rumoured to be hiding.

Abdul Ghaffar, a mujahedin commander and the newly installed mayor of Jalalabad, said that in the next few days the Americans would send winter uniforms and supplies of food to some 2,000 mujahedin fighters who are preparing to attack the Tora Bora cave complex, 35 miles south of the city.

He said that mujahedin commanders had already been given American money via an Afghan intermediary based in the Pakistani town of Peshawar.

As pressure mounted on the Taliban, many of the former regime's officials fled Kandahar for Pakistan – ostensibly to visit their families, but presumably with no intention of returning.

There were some reports yesterday of opposition forces claiming to have entered the city, though this could not be verified. The Pentagon said it knew opposition forces were circling the area but that it had no information of an assault on Kandahar.

The Taliban and al-Qa'ida leadership had been cut off from their main force and dare not communicate by radio because the messages would be intercepted, defence sources claimed yesterday. They say Mullah Mohammed Omar is unlikely to escape across the border into Pakistan.

Units from the US army's 10th Mountain Division have been flown in from Uzbekistan, meanwhile, to guard Bagram airbase outside Kabul where 120 members of the Royal Marines Special Boat Service are based.

This, according to the defence sources, is the next stage in preparing the use of the all-weather airbase for future large-scale operations.

Officials said at least two dozen of the US soldiers were at Bagram airfield and a similar number are at another near the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif. Rear Admiral John Stufflebeem said similar security teams will be moved around northern Afghanistan to "increase the size of the footprint in one location and shrink it in others".

At the same time, opposition forces are continuing their efforts to try and persuade Taliban commanders in Kandahar to surrender, thereby avoiding the anticipated slaughter in the battle for the city. Some said they were hampered by the Taliban's leader Mullah Omar's claim that his forces were involved in a holy war.

There have been a number of successes using this tactic. Yesterday it was claimed that the most senior Taliban military intelligence officer had been persuaded to defect to the opposition forces, along with two Taliban government ministers.

Pentagon spokeswoman Victoria Clarke refused to mention specific names, but confirmed defections among important Taliban figures, "another sign that the Taliban continues to be degraded".

"There have been defections ... of some of the more senior people," Ms Clarke said.

Khalid Pashtoon, a spokesman for the forces of Gul Agha, Kandahar's former mujahedin governor, said: "We are moving toward Kandahar and we expect to be in there in a few days.

"Our biggest obstacle is [Mullah Omar's] Islamic decree to the Taliban to continue with jihad. This is why they are not surrendering. He is definitely there, he wants to fight to the last drop of his blood."

Mr Pashtoon said that those who did surrender were being treated properly.

He denied previous reports that his forces had disregarded the Geneva Convention covering the treatment of war prisoners by executing 160 unarmed Taliban PoWs.

In Kandahar, the Taliban hanged a man whom it claimed was passing on information to US forces via a satellite phone. The Taliban-controlled Afghan Islamic Press (AIP) said the former regime told a crowd in one of the city's squares that the man – an Afghan – had been helping direct US bombing.