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U.S. Marines
Prepare to Attack Kandahar
ISLAMABAD, Nov. 26 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - A spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition on Monday confirmed that "upwards of 1,000" U.S. Marines were on the ground near the Taliban's base of Kandahar in southern Afghanistan.
"I can confirm military activity in the vicinity of Kandahar - U.S. Marines, upwards of 1,000 - but we will not go into other operational details at the moment," the spokesman said, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Pentagon officials were quoted Sunday by ABC News as saying that U.S. Marines were on the ground near Kandahar. Their numbers would reach 1,200 to 1,600 within a day.
In the meantime, news from Kabul reported that the United States deployed troops Monday in southern Afghanistan as it readied for a major thrust against the Taliban stronghold of Kandahar, a U.S. official said.
"Their first job will be to secure the airport near Kandahar, and then their primary goal will be to attack Taliban targets," the official added.
The Marines are to be deployed from two ready amphibious groups that were based in the Arabian Sea until Sunday, ABC reported.
U.S. warplanes pounded Taliban positions inside the city, which is also the spiritual center of the Taliban. The Afghan Islamic Press news agency (AIP) reported that all wireless contact with other provinces has been cut off.
BBC's online news service reported fierce fighting breaking out in Spin Boldak, a town on the southern border with Pakistan.
Some 700 fighters under Achakzai tribal leader Haji Ibrahim had crossed the Pakistan-Afghanistan border and were coordinating with troops under former Kandahar commander Gul Agha, said BBC.
Anti-Taliban forces had said earlier that they were hoping for a quick negotiated Taliban surrender in the town.
Tribal efforts to topple the Taliban in Kandahar - the power base of its supreme leader Mullah Mohammad Omar - were stepped up at the weekend with the seizure of the village of Takht-i-Pull, which cut off Spin Boldak from Kandahar.
Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, blamed by Washington for the deadly September 11 attacks on the United States, is "contained" in Kandahar, along with Taliban chief Mullah Mohammad Omar, Northern Alliance foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah said.
The U.S.-led hunt for the two men "is not yet over," Abdullah told a news conference in Kabul.
A major Taliban supply and escape route, the road between Kandahar and Spin Boldak, on the Pakistani border, was cut off by anti-Taliban Pashtun tribesmen, said AIP, which maintains close contacts with the Islamic militia.
The Taliban, however, denied Monday reports that U.S. troops had landed in Kandahar and dismissed reports of fighting on the Afghan-Pakistan border.
Asked about claims that U.S. troops had been helicoptered into Afghanistan close to Kandahar, Maulvi Najibullah, the Taliban's deputy secretary of foreign affairs, replied, "This is not true."
AIP said Kandahar was under intense U.S. bombardment as troops, tanks and artillery material landed near an airport 12 miles (20 kilometers) to the south, and tribal uprisings flared elsewhere in the southern province.
Speaking in Chaman, on the Pakistani side of the border, Najibullah also rejected any talks of negotiations that could ensure a peaceful handover of power from the Taliban. "We are not ready to negotiate. We will continue our fight."
He also denied claims by supporters of former Kandahar governor Haji Gul Agha that there has been severe fighting across the border in the town of Spin Boldak.
U.S. forces were also involved in the battle for Qala-e-Jangi, the Mazar-e-Sharif fort where mostly non-Afghan Taliban war prisoners launched a rebellion, AIP reported.
At least one American, possibly a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operative, was inside the fort at the time and was feared to have been killed, although this was not confirmed by U.S. officials, reported AFP.
U.S. and British special forces joined the fighting and called in air strikes on the rioters, who were mostly Arab, Pakistani and Chechen fighters linked with al-Qaeda, according to Alliance sources.
Mohammad Alam, a spokesman for Alliance commander Atta Mohammad, said the six-hour gun battle on Sunday erupted after a Taliban prisoner hurled a grenade on Alliance officers.
"We are watching them to prevent them escaping. If they try, we will open fire," Alam said. "Some among them who tried to leave were bombed."
Alam said the prisoners involved in the uprising were "those who surrendered" in Kunduz and were brought to Mazar-e-Sharif, where they "disarmed the guards and the security services" before rebelling.
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