Tribal forces attacked the outskirts of Kandahar, the Taliban's southern bastion, yesterday as US bombers pounded the Afghan city and talks on a power-sharing government reached a crucial stage.
Ethnic Pashtun fighters attacked the airport near the last Taliban stronghold overnight, meeting strong resistance from hundreds of Osama bin Laden's Arab fighters entrenched there, a tribal spokesman said.
"The Arabs are really fighting, they know they have no choice, they are fighting to the death," said Khalid Pashtoon, a spokesman for Gul Agha Sherzai, the former mujahidin governor of Kandahar.
Preparing the way for a post-Taliban Afghanistan, the Northern Alliance and rival factions meeting in Germany hoped to clinch a power-sharing pact as talks entered a sixth day.
The talks have brought Afghans to the brink of a peace deal after 23 years of war, warlords and Islamic extremism.
The fighting around Kandahar came as US forces reinforced their desert base outside the city. The US Marines have made no immediate move on Kandahar, the spiritual home of the Taliban regime and powerbase of its leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar.
At the political talks in Bonn, exhausted delegates and UN mediators hope to crack the toughest nut on the agenda when they get down to haggling over who gets which job.
Despite late-night debates and Ramadan fasting, the Afghans displayed an irrepressible optimism they can clinch a deal very soon, without saying exactly when. Diplomats following the talks expected an agreement yesterday or today.
The rival factions agreed overnight to the outline of an interim government with between 25 and 30 members.
The agreement is seen including a provision for international peacekeepers to provide stability for the new interim government to return to the battered capital. Billions of dollars in reconstruction aid depend on the deal.
The small interim administration would start rebuilding the country for a few months until a Loya Jirga, a traditional grand assembly, could appoint a longer-term government.
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