Afghanistan's embattled Taliban vowed yesterday to fight on and retain their southern powerbase as fresh divisions appeared in the factions and foreign forces aligned against them.
Ousted former president Burhanuddin Rabbani returned to Kabul five years after the Taliban drove him out and tried to allay fears that his Northern Alliance which swept into the capital Kabul on Tuesday would cling to power.
The UN said the alliance was obstructing urgent talks needed to construct a broad-based post-Taliban government.
"We have not come to Kabul to extend our government. We came to Kabul for peace. We are preparing the ground to invite peace groups and all Afghan intellectuals abroad who are working for the peace," Rabbani told a news conference. "We welcome the formation of a broad-based government as soon as possible."
But alliance leaders said they did not want foreign troops on Afghan soil and said most of the British forces who landed at an airbase north of Kabul this week must leave. About 100 British special forces arrived on Friday for what British officials said was an operation to provide security for humanitarian operations.
As British troops secured Bagram airbase, a spokesman for the Taliban's leader said that the militia would fight to retain control of Kandahar. Mohammed Tayeb al-Agha, spokesman for Mullah Mohammad Omar, dismissed reports that Omar had decided to withdraw from the city.
The Taliban envoy to Pakistan, Abdul Salam Zaeef, said yesterday that Osama bin Laden had left Afghanistan and that the Islamic militia did not know his whereabouts.
``Osama has left Afghanistan with his children and his wives and we have no idea where he has gone,'' the envoy said at the Chaman border crossing."The Prince of the Believers Mullah Omar and all the senior Taliban officials are in Kandahar and the provinces around it which are under our control. They have not left," he said.
Foreign Ministry spokesman for the Taliban Maulvi Najibullah said the movement had not handed over control of Kandahar to commanders Mullah Naqeebullah and Haji Bashar and "will not do so in future as well." In little more than a week, the Taliban have seen their hold on the country shrink from more than 90 percent to about a third.
The militia have been driven back by an emboldened opposition and US-led bombing as punishment for shielding Saudi-born militant Osama bin Laden, chief suspect in the Sept. 11 hijack attacks on the US.
Aside from Kandahar, the only major Taliban redoubt left is the northern province and city of Kunduz.
The opposition said thousands of Pakistani, Arab and Chechen fighters under siege in the enclave were fighting to the death, aware they had nowhere to run.
"We have surrounded the Kunduz province but unfortunately we have not captured it yet," said Zubai, a Northern Alliance Foreign Ministry official, speaking by telephone from Taloqan about 60km to the east of Kunduz.
"The mayor of Kunduz is negotiating with local Taliban and they say we will give up the city for you. But the foreign Taliban will never accept this."
As the end of Taliban rule nears in large parts of the country, the UN is scrambling to establish a broad-based government and distribute aid. But signs are that is going to be difficult.
Britain, France and Germany led European moves to send troops into Afghanistan to protect the distribution of food before winter arrives but there was confusion whether they would be welcome.
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