Taliban Flees Kandahar; Marines Kill 7 in Skirmish

Taliban soldiers fled the southern Afghan city of Kandahar on Friday as the formal ground war against the fundamentalist regime drew to an end, but the surrender left what had been the last Taliban stronghold in chaos and the whereabouts of leader Mullah Mohammed Omar unknown.

U.S. Marines in the air and on the ground attacked fleeing Taliban fighters who refused to give up their weapons. In the most significant confrontation, Marines patrolling roads near Kandahar killed seven suspected Taliban and Al Qaeda soldiers and destroyed three vehicles after the drivers attempted to speed through a roadblock.

As the Taliban ceded all claims to Afghanistan on Day 62 of the war, Omar reneged on a deal to renounce terrorism in return for his freedom and hence would be hunted as a criminal, said Hamid Karzai, a Pushtun tribal leader who will become the nation’s interim prime minister on Dec. 22.

“The Taliban is finished,” Karzai declared. “As of today, they are no longer a part of Afghanistan.”

Yet Bush administration officials who had repeatedly insisted to Karzai that Omar be “brought to justice” voiced anger that the surrender of the Taliban’s birthplace occurred without his capture.

Pentagon and White House officials said they believed that the one-eyed Taliban chief remained in Kandahar but that they could not be certain. An intelligence source said the United States had no idea where Omar was.

Karzai had apparently asked only that Omar swear off terrorism and failed to ensure that the elusive Taliban chief would surrender.

“I’ve been asking him repeatedly to denounce terrorism and war and the suffering of the Afghan people,” Karzai said. “I also asked the Taliban Cabinet yesterday that he [Omar] must distance himself clearly and denounce terrorism. I gave him a last chance. . . . From today, he is a fugitive from law, and he must be arrested and put on trial.”

The Taliban also handed over the border town of Spin Buldak and the provinces of Zabol and Helmand. Yet although the Taliban’s leaders have given up, many of its fighters have not. Pockets of hidden Taliban gunmen and alleged Al Qaeda terrorists remain throughout Afghanistan, Pentagon officials said.

Afghan and Pakistani Taliban fighters largely have been allowed to lay down their weapons and go home under a general amnesty that was part of the surrender agreement. But the nation’s putative leader said the other foreign fighters who came to Afghanistan to wage holy war will receive no amnesty.

“They are criminals, they have committed unbelievably unhuman crimes, they must face justice,” Karzai said from an encampment 20 miles from Kandahar. “They will not be let go.”

It became apparent, however, that holding those fighters could be a problem. With fewer than 2,000 U.S. troops in the country, the United States lacks the manpower to stem a mass exodus that could allow Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters to regroup and fight another day. By late Friday, a large number of the 600 armed Arab, Pakistani and Chechen fighters holed up in Kandahar apparently had slipped away.

The aftermath of the turnover of the former spiritual center of the Taliban poses a continuing military threat that appeared far from over, said Army Gen. Tommy Franks, head of U.S. Central Command, which is directing the war. He estimated that it could be two to three days before stability was achieved in Kandahar.

Whether under the auspices of the United States or of its allies, Franks vowed, many senior Taliban and Al Qaeda leaders and an untold number of junior fighters will be pursued and punished.

“There is a possibility that a great many of the fighters that we see in Afghanistan will be treated as criminals,” he said in Tampa, Fla. “Additionally, there is the possibility that they may be brought out of the country of Afghanistan and be brought to trial either by a tribunal or in our own country.”

Early today, Marines at Camp Rhino, their forward base in southern Afghanistan, were stopping lines of refugees fleeing Kandahar to match faces with photographs of suspected leaders. “If Al Qaeda wishes to fight to the death, we’ll accommodate them,” said Marine Corps spokesman Capt. Stewart Upton.

Franks said the unrest and continued threat could lead to the transfer of 1,500 Marines from a base near Kandahar into the city and the arrival of more U.S. ground troops. Because the Marine base includes an airstrip, the Pentagon could send in hundreds of additional troops via cargo plane in a day’s time, a senior Pentagon official said.

“I will simply say that the possibility of increasing forces on the ground is certainly on the table,” Franks said.

Friday’s confrontation in Kandahar was the Marines’ first offensive ground action since they set up a makeshift base in southern Afghanistan in late November.

While U.S. forces regrouped to cope with the confusion wrought by the fall of Kandahar, brief skirmishes broke out inside the city as anti-Taliban forces moved triumphantly in and challenged the new ruling council negotiated by Karzai.

There was a sense of euphoria in parts of the city, where residents poured into the streets and waved flags as tribal militias rumbled into town. But there were also reports of looting, and rival forces began marking off territory with road checkpoints, not only in Kandahar but also on the main highway leading to Spin Buldak and the Pakistani border.

Amid the celebrations, there were also signs that portions of Afghanistan’s uneasy government-in-waiting were unraveling.

Angry over the makeup of the interim government negotiated by Afghan leaders at a meeting in Germany, Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum, an ethnic Uzbek warlord from the Northern Alliance who helped lead the anti-Taliban sweep of northern Afghanistan, has vowed to boycott the new government and retain control of portions of the north.

In Spin Buldak, checkpoints were being operated by at least three tribal leaders. Pushtun tribal commander Gul Agha Shirzai, who has rejected the terms of the negotiated surrender with the Taliban, dispatched his troops into Kandahar to challenge the rule of Mullah Naquibullah, selected as the interim leader of the city, and reportedly occupied the governor’s residence there. Shirzai also reportedly threatened to send his troops into Spin Buldak to challenge another tribal leader, Mullah Akhdar Jan, appointed to oversee that city.

“Gul Agha has now made a statement he’s giving Akhdar Jan till morning to surrender or he’ll come to him with 3,000 troops,” said Noor Zaman Achakzai, a Pakistani journalist reporting at the border. “In Spin Buldak, there is a panic situation. The people are very much afraid they [the incoming tribal forces] would loot the city and bring danger.”

In Kandahar, there was some fighting between Shirzai’s forces and those loyal to Naquibullah, whose appointment as interim leader was a condition of the Taliban’s surrender. Abdul Khaliq, a clan leader who was involved in some of the southern Afghanistan surrender negotiations, said he had been in contact with all parties in an attempt to appeal for calm and consensus.

Shirzai spokesman Mohammed Yusef Pushtoon challenged the appointment of Naquibullah and his deputy, Haji Bashar. Naquibullah had a leading role in Kandahar’s government before the Taliban took over the city in 1994 and is perceived as sympathetic to the Islamic movement, and Bashar is a businessman and reputed smuggler who is said to have had close ties to Omar.

“What happens in Kandahar now, Hamid Karzai is responsible. He has brought the most corrupt and most notorious people to Kandahar. . . . The Taliban changed their turbans and trimmed their beards, but they are the same Taliban,” Pushtoon said.

Karzai planned to enter Kandahar today to try to stop the feuding by gathering tribal, religious and militia leaders together to select an interim ruling council. But he conceded that Afghanistan might need help to forge a lasting peace.

“The Afghan people want real stability and peace in Afghanistan, and if we do not have the means to provide that, we would very much want an international force,” he said.

Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said Friday that both Germany and Britain have offered to lead a multinational force in Afghanistan to protect the new interim administration and help stabilize the country.

During two days in Brussels for semiannual meetings of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Powell talked to his 18 counterparts in the alliance about both the composition of such a force and raising funds for the new Afghan administration, which is scheduled to govern for up to six months.

Powell said he had several offers of troops for the force as well as funds. “Many are interested,” he told reporters en route from Brussels to Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan, on the fourth leg of a 10-nation tour.

The secretary expressed confidence that the U.S.-led coalition will be able to come up with funds in the near future.

“We’ll find some. It won’t take a lot,” he said. “Afghanistan is not Western Europe after World War II.”

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Murphy reported from Quetta and Hendren from Washington. Times staff writers Tony Perry with the U.S. Marines and Robin Wright in Brussels contributed to this report.