Taliban soliders fight back

Taliban forces are back in control of the strategic border town of Spin Boldak today after the regime's leaders countermanded a decision to retreat.

The town lies on the southern supply route into the Taliban's stronghold at Kandahar and was taken over by Pashtun tribal leaders in a negotiated deal with local Taliban commanders.

But less than 24 hours later, the leadership in Kandahar ordered in heavily-armed fighters with instructions to take back the town, by force if necessary. The tribal chiefs withdrew, leaving the Taliban back in their old positions.

The move came as Taliban forces mounted a strong counter-offensive at Takhta Pul, south of Kandahar. Tribesmen, backed by US and British special forces, have been trying to capture the town for days, but the Taliban have poured men and weapons into the area in an effort to maintain a buffer around Kandahar.

With US marines reinforcing the bridgehead at Dolangi, it is expected that the final battle for Kandahar will come soon. The number of marines based at the airstrip 50 miles south-west of the city is scheduled to reach 1,000 today. According to reports here, the marines have already made contact with Taliban forces and inflicted losses on a convoy in a helicopter gunship attack.

The Taliban's former ambassador to Pakistan, Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef, said Kandahar would be defended "to the last". Speaking on the BBC's Pashto service, he said Taliban leader Mullah Omar was in Kandahar and in control of Talibanforces. Chief terrorist suspect Osama bin Laden, he said, was no longer in contact with the regime. "He is no more in areas currently under our control," he said.

American troops are expected to launch a ground search for Bin Laden in the next few days. He may be hiding in a mountain cave and bunker network but there are scores of such places. The Taliban's former deputy interior minister Maulvi Khakraz said Bin Laden had been in Kabul but shortly before the city fell to Northern Alliance forces he moved to a mountain hideout in Uruzgan, one of Afghanistan's most inaccessible areas.

Northern Alliance foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah said he believed Bin Laden was in the south of Afghanistan near the

town of Maruf. Hazarat Ali, an official in the new provincial government based in Jalalabad said he was "70 per cent certain" Bin Laden was in the White Mountain area of Tora Bora in the east.

There was support for Hazarat Ali's story today from a man described in the Daily Telegraph as Bin Laden's grocer. According to the report, an Afghan reporter spoke to a man named as Haji Jamal who had been Bin Laden's supply chief. He said Bin Laden had withdrawn to the White Mountain area with 400 of his Al Qaeda fighters.

Meanwhile there was growing pressure in Pakistan for an inquiry into the deaths of 600 prisonersof-war at the Qala-i-Jangi fort near Mazar-i-Sharif after US jets bombed them. Many of the dead were Pakistani Taliban volunteers and newspapers here are asking whether the killings followed a mass revolt, as suggested, or whether there was a determination to execute the foreign fighters.