Taleban vow to defend Kandahar

The Taleban have lost about two-thirds of the country

The Taleban say they have no intention of abandoning their southern stronghold of Kandahar, dismissing reports that some of their fighters have been leaving the city.

They have also confirmed that a senior commander, Mohammed Atef, was killed in a US bombing raid earlier this week. The United States described him as one of Osama Bin Laden's top deputies.

In an interview with the BBC from Kandahar, a Taleban spokesman, Mohammad Tayyab Agha, dismissed as "propaganda" reports that Taleban fighters had left the city.

Atef: One of a number of al-Qaeda leaders reported killed

"Our orders are to live here in Kandahar and defend our Islamic law... We have to stay here in Kandahar," he said.

He also said the Taleban supreme commander, Mullah Muhammed Omar, was still "in the area controlled by our forces".

Earlier, the Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press agency reported that Mullah Omar had agreed to leave Kandahar and turn it over to two local Pashtun leaders.

Aid agencies with close links to the region also said Taleban forces were moving out of Kandahar, heading north.

Bombing was continuing around Kandahar, but there was no fighting on the ground, Mr Agha said.

Click here for map of the battlegrounds

The BBC's Susannah Price in neighbouring Pakistan says the heavily armed foreigners fighting for the Taleban, who include Arabs and Pakistanis, are unlikely to give up.

They are also threatened from the west by Herat-based Northern Alliance commander Ismail Khan, who said he would march on the city.

A Taleban official speaking from the south-east Afghan border town of Spinboldak told the Associated Press news agency that Mohammed Atef was among eight Taleban fighters who died in a US air strike on Wednesday. He did not say where the raid took place.

Atef - a top aide to al-Qaeda leader Bin Laden - was regarded as one of the key planners behind the 11 September attacks on New York and Washington.

US air raids

A US B-52 bomber raided Taleban positions on Saturday around the northern city of Kunduz, where up to 3,000 fighters - thought to be mainly Arabs and Pakistanis - remain encircled by the Northern Alliance.

The Taleban fighters exchanged artillery and rocket fire with the Northern Alliance.

Rumsfeld released pictures of what he said were US special forces on horseback

The mayor of Kunduz has asked the Northern Alliance to delay any advance while he negotiates with the trapped Taleban - but a deadline for their surrender runs out on Saturday.

During heavy air raids on Kandahar on Friday, US jets hit the Taleban foreign ministry building and a mosque.

Eleven civilians were reported to have been killed in the raids, but there has been no independent confirmation of this.

And US Central Command said a mosque was also hit in the town of Khowst, eastern Afghanistan, when a 500-pound bomb aimed at an al-Qaeda facility went astray.

US special forces

US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said on Friday that American special forces were active in Afghanistan, shooting Taleban fighters and members of al-Qaeda.

The US special forces in Afghanistan had sometimes met resistance and had to call in air support, he said. Some had been wounded, but none had been killed.

"They're killing Taleban that won't surrender and al-Qaeda that are trying to move from one place to another," he told reporters.

He added that there was every reason to believe that Bin Laden was still in Afghanistan, despite claims that he had fled to neighbouring Pakistan.

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