ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Nov. 14 (UPI) -- Fighting erupted in the Taliban stronghold of Kandahar Wednesday, a day after forces of the Northern Alliance captured Kabul.
As the alliance forces spread across Afghanistan, U.S. jets continued bombing Taliban positions in the south and the east, forcing the religious militia to retreat to its stronghold in southern Kandahar province.
Refugees in the Pakistani border town of Chaman reported heavy fighting in Kandahar city and the Afghan Embassy in Tajikistan said anti-Taliban Pashtun tribes had captured Kandahar.
Other sources said hundreds of anti-Taliban Pashtun tribesmen seized the Kandahar airport while other tribesmen were engaging Taliban fighters in Kandahar city.
None of the reports could be independently confirmed.
Northern Alliance Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah described the situation in Kandahar as chaotic.
"It's absolute confusion. The Taliban have lost control of the situation and no Taliban officials are to be found," he said on Iran's state television.
Reports from Afghanistan indicate that U.S. jets were concentrating on Taliban positions in the eastern provinces of Nangarhar and Khost, targeting airports and military installations.
The Northern Alliance now controls more than 50 percent of Afghanistan. Until last week, it was limited to small pockets in the northern part of the country but expanded rapidly after capturing a key northern city on Friday.
By Wednesday, the alliance forced the Taliban forces out of several southern provinces as well, which were once considered strongholds of the religious militia. After losing the provinces of Nimrooz, Uruzgun and Lugar, the Taliban troops were gathering in Kandahar.
An anti-Taliban Pashtun leader, Hamid Karzai, has many followers in this area and on Tuesday the Afghan ambassador at the United Nations told the Security Council that Karzai was "organizing a rebellion against the Taliban in the south."
A former deputy foreign minister of Afghanistan, Karzai is a supporter of deposed Afghan King Mohammed Zahir Shah.
Earlier reports said the Taliban had fled from the eastern town of Jalalabad after the local population revolted against them. The Taliban denied the report but Northern Alliance sources said that anti-Taliban Pashtun tribal chiefs were meeting near Jalalabad to "form a power-sharing administration" for the eastern provinces.
A similar administration ruled the eastern provinces before the Taliban captured the area in 1996. The previous administration was headed by Haji Abdul Kadeer, a Pashtun tribal chief now a commander in the Northern Alliance.
Kadeer's brother, Abdul Haq, was executed by the Taliban last month while trying to engineer a revolt against the militia near Kabul.
The alliance reported popular uprisings against the Taliban in four eastern provinces of Laghman, Logar, Kunar and Nangahar, forcing the militia to abandon large territories.
The Northern Alliance's Interior Minister, Yunis Qanuni, said the Taliban now control less than 20 percent of Afghanistan, as more provinces declare themselves free of its control.
The Taliban, however, describe their collapse as a tactical withdrawal and say that they are regrouping to fight back.
"We face no opposition in eastern or southern Afghanistan. The Pashtuns are still with us. We will regroup and fight back," said Sohail Shaheen, the former Taliban deputy ambassador in Islamabad.
The Taliban abandoned the Embassy on Tuesday after the Northern Alliance captured Kabul.
He said the Taliban were preparing for "a long guerrilla war from the mountains and villages of Afghanistan."
Witnesses in the Pakistani border towns of Landi Kotal and Chaman said some Taliban fighters had fled to Pakistan and were now hiding in refugee camps.
In Kabul, anti-Taliban troops have killed at least 11 Arabs and Pakistanis suspected of supporting the religious militia. They are particularly upset with Pakistan for supporting the Taliban militia. Some Pakistanis were tortured before being killed and then hung upside down while the alliance troops spat at them.
The International Red Cross said hundreds of Taliban supporters were killed in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif, which fell to the Taliban on Friday. Soldiers also looted tons of food from relief agencies stores, said a report.
The British Broadcasting Corp. reported that Red Cross workers buried hundreds of bodies in marked graves "for reasons of health and of dignity."
A U.N. spokeswoman in Islamabad, Stephanie Bunker, said, "Over 100 Taliban troops who were young recruits... hiding in a school were killed by Northern Alliance forces on Saturday."
