Noose tightens on Taliban

Taliban fighters are continuing to hold their positions around their main stronghold of the city of Kandahar, as US and British special forces step up the manhunt for Osama bin Laden in mountains along the Pakistan border.

US forces say their aircraft bombed a building where al Qaeda guerrilla commanders were holding a meeting. The Americans have not specified the location of the building, but say they believe all inside were killed. Bin Laden is not thought to have been among them.

Thousands of Taliban and al Qaeda fighters are now reported to be surrounded in the northern city of Kunduz. This morning, the Northern Alliance brought up 20 more tanks and offered to open talks as they prepared a final assault.

The al Qaeda forces are largely Arabs and Pakistanis. The Northern Alliance commanders have said the foreign fighters will be executed if they are caught. The UN has approved the mission of the special envoy for Afghanistan, Lakhdar Brahimi, to try to form a new government.

Mr Brahimi has said that his deputies are due to travel to Kabul soon, and the United Arab Emirates has agreed to host a meeting next week of different groups interested in forming a new government for Afghanistan.

The spiritual leader and founder of the Taliban, Mullah Mohammad Omar, has rejected any suggestion that elements of the Taliban would join a new government coalition. In a dramatic phone call to the Pashtun service of the BBC World Service, Mullah Omar said that his forces are firmly in control of Kandahar, and are planning "a long guerrilla war" to recover territory from which they had recently withdrawn voluntarily.

Although Mullah Omar told the BBC he has "full control" of Kandahar and the neighbouring province of Oruzgan, this is thought to be unlikely as heavy fighting has been reported this morning from the city of Kandahar itself.

For all his bravado, the area controlled by Mullah Omar and his command of the Taliban is now narrowing by the hour. Pashtun chieftains in the area, led by the supporter of former king Zahia Shah, Hamid Karzia, are leading the fight against the Taliban.

In Kabul the Northern Alliance says its military council, under its interior minister Yunis Qassani, has said that it will take charge until a new coalition government can be formed. The council has said it does not want to see a UN interim government trying to take over in the meantime.

The governor of the Northern Alliance council is its commander in the field Mohammad Qassim Fahim Khan, the successor to the charismatic Ahmad Shah Masood, murdered by an al Qaeda suicide squad.

The UN has agreed that an international " stabilisation force" led by the Americans should go to Afghanistan as quickly as possible. It has not been mandated as a peacekeeping force, and its main objective is to bring in aid and to try to stem the

growing anarchy in many of the cities liberated by the Northern Alliance. The Alliance has said that it does not want foreign troops in Kabul, although its boast that it can keep law and order seems increasingly hollow.

Canada has just volunteered 1,000 soldiers, now on 48 hours' notice to move, for the international force. This is in addition to the five Canadian warships just arrived in the Arabian Sea to support the USBritish task force.

Turkey, Nato's only Muslim member, has

of fered substantial forces. Turkey's prime minister Bulent Ecevit has stated publicly in Ankara that Turkey, which has strong ethnic ties to the Northern Alliance, wishes to be consulted in shaping a future coalition government for Afghanistan.

Indonesia, the most numerous Muslim nation, has also offered to contribute troops to an international force.

This weekend 4,000 British troops, mostly paratroopers and Royal Marines will be put on standby for an immediate move to Afghanistan.

Bin Laden hunt widens to Pakistan