KABUL, Nov 29: US forces turned up the heat on Osama bin Laden and Taliban leaders in Afghanistan on Thursday, bombing the militia’s capital, Kandahar, but failing to shake its will to fight.

US warplanes reportedly pounded the Taliban’s southern stronghold, home to leader Mullah Mohammad Omar, overnight Wednesday and Thursday as some 800 Marines set up base in the desert to the south of the city.

But Taliban troops remained defiant, telling AFP at Pakistan’s Chaman border crossing they had retaken the nearby town of Takhtapul from rebellious Pashtun tribesmen and were ready to fight the Americans.

“The Taliban are ready to fight with anyone, including the Americans,” said Abdul Kadim, a Taliban driver from the border town of Spin Boldak. “Our children will not forget this. We will fight until the last drop of blood.”

Anti-Taliban tribal militia captured Takhtapul earlier this week and claimed to have taken Spin Boldak, cutting the main road between Kandahar city and the Pakistani border.

But Taliban soldier Abdul Rashid said he had fought in a battle which drove supporters of Kandahar province’s former governor, Gul Agha, from Takthapul on Wednesday night.

“The people of Gul Agha have left Takhtapul. We have recaptured it last night,” he told AFP.

Takhtapul and Spin Boldak are crucial as they lie on the road which leaders and troops of both the Taliban and bin Laden’s al-Qaeda network could use to escape Afghanistan into Pakistan.

Taliban loyalists said the Islamic militia was still in control of Spin Boldak and were in high spirits in Kandahar city despite the US troop buildup in the province.

The Afghan Islamic Press reported that Taliban troops publicly hanged an Afghan man suspected of spying for the United States at a main intersection in Kandahar, wrapping his satellite phone around his corpse as a warning.

Some 800 Marines from two expeditionary forces were meanwhile setting up base at an air strip somewhere to the south of Kandahar as part of the largest deployment of US troops since the start of the war on October 7.

They were involved in an air attack on an armored column near the air strip on Monday but have otherwise seen little action.

Possibly swelling to 1,500 and backed by AH-1W Cobra helicopter gunships, they would be used to choke off Kandahar and block escape routes to Pakistan, Iran or Kabul.

About 20 US troops from the 10th Mountain Division had also arrived at the airport in Mazar-i-Sharif to provide security, a senior defense official said.

Rear Admiral John Stufflebeem, the deputy director of operations of the Joint Staff, said the US strategy in Afghanistan was shifting toward elmininating the leadership of the Taliban and al-Qaeda.

“If we break the leadership of the Taliban or break the leadership of al-Qaeda there is reduced emphasis or reduced motivation for troops to stay loyal to the cause and continue to fight,” he said.

“There are always going to be pockets who are going to fight to the end in any campaign. But getting the key leadership and breaking the chain of command is going to render much of that ineffective.”

A report in a US daily said Northern Alliance forces had captured several top members of al-Qaeda, the group accused of carrying out the September 11 terrorist atrocities in the United States.

The Los Angeles Times, quoting US intelligence officials, said Thursday that one of the detainees was Ahmed Omar Abdel-Rahman, the son of Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman, the blind Muslim cleric convicted in 1995 for his role in a foiled plot to bomb several New York landmarks.

Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman’s followers were convicted in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, while his 36-year-old son was described as an important figure in charge of recruiting for al-Qaeda.

A B-1 bomber inflicted heavy damage Tuesday to a compound southeast of Kandahar where senior leaders of al-Qaeda and the Taliban were believed to be gathered, Pentagon officials said.—AFP