Dawn broke on Tuesday over the crenellated mud walls of the Qala-e-Jhangi fort - and still, despite a night of heavy bombardment by American warplanes, the Taleban resistance went on.

Only a tiny number of prisoners were still alive, but they kept up a barrage of rifle fire and mortars, stealing in and out of the shadows to take pot-shots at their alliance captors.

In mid-morning five vehicles rolled up carrying British and American special forces - some of whom were clearly unsettled by the presence of the press.

"Give us some space, that's all we're asking," one American pleaded with an intrusive television crew.

Shooting dead bodies

The British, with faces masked in Palestinian-style cloths, drove up to the fort in white jeeps.

The men scaled the ramparts of the fort, their task to help the Northern Alliance forces in their final assault on the prisoners.

By late afternoon it was all over.

Three loud blasts from a tank apparently killed the last two Taleban - though Northern Alliance soldiers continued to shoot at the bodies strewn in the courtyard as they approached them - just in case any were still alive.

First eyewitnesses told of a terrible scene inside.

An American cameraman said it was unbelievable: "There are hundreds of bodies in there - bodies and bits of bodies, all over the place."

Dying 'as martyrs'

The death toll will be assessed by Red Cross workers when they enter the fort on Wednesday.

They say they will have to be careful, as there could be unexploded ordnance lying around.

Once Northern Alliance soldiers move the bodies to a safe place, the Red Cross will photograph them, try to identify them, and then bury them.

It was thought at first that as many as 500 Taleban soldiers had been captured, but the head of the foreign ministry in northern Afghanistan, Said Nurullah, said he believed there were some 300 - and that all were now dead.

The foreign fighters - from Arab countries, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Germany and Britain - had been promised humane treatment as prisoners of war, but instead chose to die, as they would see it, as martyrs.