Resistance grows in the south

Shells whistled over the heads of terrified villagers and exploded into the dust either side of the main southern highway from Kabul as the Taliban and al Qaeda fought for the second day for control of the road.

Northern Alliance troops, having yesterday failed to drive the enemy from their positions in mountain ridges and a village below with an infantry attack, milled around Maidan Shah leaderless and apparently bereft of tactical ideas.

They relied on multiple rocket launchers and tanks to suppress the Taliban and their foreign allies, who were being re-supplied from Ghazni and Kandahar to the south.

The strength of Taliban resistance, and the accuracy of their gunners and rocketeers, has stunned Alliance troops. Their lacklustre performance bodes ill for any hopes that the Alliance will be able to hold ground outside the Afghan capital, where the US-led coalition's hunt for Osama bin Laden is most intense.

While the Alliance looked set to rout the Taliban in the northern city of Kunduz, there has been a stiffening of resistance in the south at Maidan Shah, a junction which controls routes north to Mazar-i-Sharif as well as to Kandahar in the south.

"All our commanders are at a shur (council) in Kabul and we've been left here with no orders," complained one fighter who wandered the street looking for cover from Taliban rockets.