M A I N   N E W S

UN draft on interim govt

Koenigswinter (Germany), December 2
The United Nations-led talks on Afghanistan’s future took an important step forward today with four Afghan factions poring over a UN draft that details proposed terms for the Northern Alliance to transfer power in Kabul.

But tough bargaining over powersharing was only beginning. None of the delegations has yet formally submitted its list of names for an envisioned interim administration -"the missing link," according to UN spokesman Ahmad Fawzi.

The draft envisions an interim administration of up to 30 persons and an independent council of elders to convene a traditional tribal council, or loya jirga, in six months. PTI

US planes pound Kandahar
Opposition forces close in on airport

Chaman (Pakistan), December 2
Heavy fighting raged today between opposition forces and the Taliban, some 3 km from the airport outside the militia’s southern stronghold of Kandahar, sources said.

The city also again came under heavy daytime aerial bombardment as the Pashtun tribal forces loyal to former Kandahar Governor Gul Agha closed in on the key provincial airport, witnesses and opposition supporters said.

US jets were now bombing round the clock with witnesses here at the Pakistani border also observing two bombs being dropped close to the Afghan frontier town of Spin Boldak.

An aide to Gul Agha said his forces had moved northwest from the Takhtapul region, between Kandahar and Spin Boldak, towards the airport on the outskirts of Kandahar city.

They had reached Urgustan bridge 3 km from the airport, where they were engaged in fierce fighting with Taliban troops.

“The fighting was heavy. There were tanks and a heavy gunfight,” said the aide who requested anonymity. Fighting had continued through the night and into the morning.

US warplanes were joined by helicopters in the pounding of Kandahar, concentrating on the airport and the city suburbs, sources said.

KABUL: Armoured convoys of US marines patrolled the desert near Kandahar, the Taliban’s last stronghold, on Sunday after tribal warriors said they were determined to take its airport and then seize the city itself.

More than 1,000 US marines are stationed at a desert base, about 110 km south-west of Kandahar, but have not taken part in the fighting for Kandahar, an officer at the base said on condition of anonymity.

Warplanes hit positions around the city in Afghanistan’s south. In the east, bombers struck positions in mountains near Jalalabad.

US officials say both locations are places where prime terrorist suspect Osama bin Laden may be hiding along with fighters of his Al-Qaida network.

Meanwhile, the Northern Alliance’s Foreign Minister, Abdullah Abdullah, told reporters here that he believed that Bin Laden was hiding in one of three provinces around Kandahar — Uruzgan, Zabul or Helmand.

Refugees, who have fled from Kandahar for the safety of neighbouring Pakistan, say the bombardment have brought chaos to the city, the spiritual home of the Taliban. AP, AFP