Associated Press

Pakistani border guards push back Afghan refugees trying to leave Afghanistan at the border post in Chaman, Pakistan, yesterday.

KABUL, Afghanistan - Anti-Taliban troops pushed to the outskirts of the Taliban's last stronghold of Kandahar yesterday and were engaged in heavy fighting, a senior northern alliance commander said. The Pentagon said opposition troops may be in the provincial district around the city.

Bismillah Khan, the alliance's deputy defense minister, told The Associated Press there was non-stop fighting on the city's eastern edge. Khan, speaking from

Kabul in a series of calls, said his information was based on radio communications with his commanders at the scene.

"There is heavy fighting going on," he said, adding he did not expect the city to fall quickly.

In Washington, Rear Adm. John Stufflebeem told reporters he could not confirm or deny that opposition forces had entered the city of Kandahar. He indicated that northern alliance troops might be in the province of Kandahar, which covers a large area of southern Afghanistan.

"I can accept that they have entered the province, but not in a large movement," he told reporters.

He suggested opposition forces might be roughly 50 miles to the north of the city of Kandahar, the birthplace of the Islamic militia, which is some 280 miles southwest of the capital, Kabul.

Khan, the northern alliance commander, spoke in Dari and used the word "shahr," which means city, in reporting on the location of troops. The Dari word for province is "wilaiyat."

Residents of Kandahar could not be contacted by telephone, and Western journalists are not allowed in Kandahar.

Pressure has been mounting on the Taliban after U.S. Marines established a forward base last weekend in southern Afghanistan, and there were reports of heavy U.S. bombing of the area yesterday.

Kandahar is the last city held by the Taliban after U.S. airstrikes and offensives by the northern alliance pushed them out of most of Afghanistan this month.

After retreating to the south, the Taliban was left with only four of the country's 30 provinces, and only one city, Kandahar, where the Islamic militia was organized in the early 1990s. The Taliban seized Kabul in 1996.

President Bush launched the military campaign against the Taliban on Oct. 7 after it refused to hand over Osama bin Laden, the main suspect in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States.

U.S. warplanes bombed positions near Kandahar's airport early yesterday after Taliban forces fired rockets at local tribesmen who radioed for American air support, an anti-Taliban tribal official, Abdul Jabbar, said in Pakistan.

Kandahar residents fleeing to the Pakistani border said bombs fell around the city overnight, but could give no details of casualties or damage.

A commander of an anti-Taliban tribal force in southern Afghanistan said his fighters were nearing the city as well.

"Our forces are five kilometers (three miles) east of Kandahar airport," Mohammed Jalal Khan said. "We hope to capture Kandahar soon." He gave no other details.

Taliban supreme leader Mullah Mohammed Omar, who apparently escaped the massive bombardment of a command bunker near Kandahar on Tuesday, reportedly ordered his men to "fight to the death."

"The fight has now begun. It is the best opportunity to achieve martyrdom," a Taliban official quoted Omar as saying. "Now we have the opportunity to fight against infidels."

Despite the mounting pressure on the Taliban, Kandahar residents arriving at the Pakistani border yesterday said the militia appeared determined to defend the city.

"Every place you glance is occupied by the Taliban. There are lots of them. They're in a standby position for war," said Haji Mahmoud.

"They gave the impression that they are ready to fight," said another refugee, who identified himself by the single name of Ataullah.

U.S. Marines have set up a base in the desert west of Kandahar, bringing more than 1,000 troops to their forward operating base. Growing numbers of elite U.S. and other Western troops and advisers have been entering other parts of Afghanistan.

In the center of Kandahar, the Taliban reportedly hanged a man they accused of spying for the Americans by pointing out potential bombing targets, the Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press reported from the city.

It said the Taliban arrested the man while he was speaking on a satellite telephone and hanged him at an intersection known as Martyr's Crossing.

At U.N.-sponsored talks in Germany, anti-Taliban factions moved closer yesterday to a formula for an interim administration to run the devastated nation until spring and to lay the foundation of a broad-based government.

The northern alliance also dropped its earlier rejection of an international security force to secure peace in Afghanistan. It said its own troops were sufficient there - for now.

In northern Afghanistan, two workers collecting bodies at a fortress where pro-Taliban prisoners staged a bloody three-day uprising were shot by holdouts yesterday, said Simon Brooks, head of the Red Cross delegation in Mazar-e-Sharif, the city near the fort.

The two wounded men - one of who was shot in the leg and the other in the hand - were taken to the military hospital in Mazar-e-Sharif, Brooks said. The Red Cross pulled its workers out of the fort area as northern alliance commanders took control of the scene.

Hundreds of foreigners fighting with the Taliban launched a fierce revolt on Sunday at the sprawling fortress where they had been imprisoned after surrendering from the besieged city of Kunduz, the Taliban's last stronghold in northern Afghanistan. Kunduz fell the same day.

The alliance had declared the uprising over on Tuesday, and on Wednesday workers began collecting bodies inside the fortress.

U.S. military officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said infantry from the U.S. Army's 10th Mountain Division have crossed from Uzbekistan into northern Afghanistan to help protect other Americans in dangerous areas near two air bases.

One force near Mazar-e-Sharif is made up of no more than two dozen soldiers, the officials said. The other unit at the Bagram airfield north of Kabul has about the same number.