CHAMAN, Pakistan (Islamweb & News Agencies) - Taliban fighters began to withdraw from the Afghan town of Spin Boldak near the Pakistan border on Monday , said a Reuters correspondent on the border.
Dozens if not hundreds of pickup trucks -- their lights extinguished -- were driving out of Spin Boldak and south into the desert of southern Afghanistan, the correspondent said. (Read photo caption below)
In Kandahar, a resident said he could hear planes overhead and see large flashes on the horizon from the direction of the airport, some 12 miles to the southeast. Kandahar, power base of Taliban supreme leader Mullah Mohammad Omar, is the last bastion of the fundamentalist movement since their northern redoubt of Kunduz crumbled in the face of a Northern Alliance advance on Sunday.
PHOTO CAPTION:
Taliban fighters who defected from Kunduz drive by a line of Northern Alliance soldiers at the front line on the border between Takhor and Kunduz provinces, November 25, 2001. Forces of anti-Taliban warlord General Abdul Rashid Dostum will not enter the besieged city of Kunduz in northern Afghanistan, leaving its capture to his Northern Alliance allies, a commander said on Sunday. (Gleb Garanich/Reuters