Word: kandahar
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...With most of the country now in anti-Taliban hands, the U.S. bombers have a fast-dwindling set of targets. The only Taliban lines left to pound last weekend were in Kunduz, the last government garrison in the north, and in Kandahar. Last week the Taliban was on the verge of quitting both cities, but defiant Taliban cadres made their stands. In the north, the estimated 6,000 Taliban troops who retreated to Kunduz from the decimated fronts at Mazar-i-Sharif and Taloqan had their supply lines and escape routes cut off. They had two options: surrender...
...siege of Kandahar was the most convincing sign that the Taliban had come undone. The swiftness of the regime's retreat from the north led some allied commanders to warn that the Taliban was conserving its forces and artillery for a ferocious defense of their southern citadel. But it didn't come. As Pashtun opposition forces encircled the city, the Taliban mustered no more than sporadic skirmishing. That, and the week's long string of northern defeats, convinced anti-Taliban Pashtun that they could take down the core Taliban warriors in the south and persuade the rest to switch sides...
...Outside Kandahar, some anti-Taliban forces mobilized behind Hamid Karzai, a commander who supports the exiled King Mohammed Zahir Shah. Karzai spent weeks working undercover in Afghanistan, drawing on his old tribal networks and recruiting chieftains to join the battle. His strategy was to sever the Taliban from its tribal links, winning over local chiefs with promises of peace and international aid. Karzai's men advanced from Uruzgan, north of Kandahar; on the other side of the city, thousands of armed men from southern border towns loyal to another tribal elder, Ghul Agha Sherzai, moved into positions in the hills...
...back," Rumsfeld said. "It is not possible to answer the question as to the circumstance of the Taliban." But their divisions are scattered, their hard-core fighters are few--Pakistani sources say 2,000 members, at most, of Omar's 50,000-strong force are still active near Kandahar--and the regime has been drained of the financial and military resources that once sustained it. "Guerrilla warfare will be all that they can do," says an Air Force general. "I doubt they can mount a counteroffensive." Even if the Taliban commits its leftover men and materiel to a prolonged guerrilla...
...words of Centcom chief Tommy Franks, more room to "focus on the alligators"--the high command of the Taliban and al-Qaeda. Last Tuesday, armed with fresh intelligence reports on the whereabouts of key Taliban and al-Qaeda figures, the Pentagon began attacking buildings in Kabul and Kandahar in which they were believed to be hiding. At least one strike nailed its target: on Friday, Rumsfeld said he had seen "authoritative reports" that the U.S. had killed Atef, al-Qaeda's military chief. Atef had intimate ties to bin Laden through his daughter's marriage to bin Laden...