Some Taliban Flee Kandahar; CIA Agent Killed

Nov. 28 -- Taliban soldiers were seen fleeing Kandahar today, in a sign that increased pressure on the regime's last remaining stronghold city is taking its toll, and the CIA confirmed one of its agents had become the first U.S. combat death of the war in Afghanistan.

More U.S. Marines were arriving at an air base some 65 miles southwest of Kandahar, in a bid to heighten the pressure on the Taliban soldiers still holding out in the besieged city. The Pentagon said leaders of the Taliban and Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda terrorist network — which the United States blames for the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington — are increasingly cut off from their troops.

Meanwhile, human rights groups launched investigations into reports that Northern Alliance soldiers were slaughtering helpless Taliban prisoners, and the head of the alliance delegation at talks in Germany said his group did not want foreign peacekeepers in Afghanistan.

At the Pentagon, spokeswoman Victoria Clarke told reporters the number of Marines at the base near Kandahar had grown to between 750 and 800. "We are getting closer to 1,000, but I don't think it's there yet," she said.

Gen. Tommy Franks, the commander of the U.S. military operation in Afghanistan, has said the U.S. troops are there to help pressure the Taliban soldiers who remain in Kandahar. However, the Marines' mission is not to attack the city themselves, he has said.

The Marines opened the Kandahar base to lend more active support to the warlords of southern Afghanistan, who have thus far offered only scattered resistance to the Taliban, said Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz.

And apparently the Marines' presence is having the desired effect on Taliban soldiers still holed up in Kandahar, where many of them had fled after suffering crushing defeats throughout the northern part of the country.

Some Taliban soldiers were photographed crouched down in the back of trucks, trying to hide from view, as they fled the city. Residents described seeing the black-turbaned soldiers cowering in fear of American bombs. But other troops reportedly were still ready for combat, and some even greeted the arrival of U.S. ground forces with glee.

"Finally we will have something to shoot at," one Taliban soldier in the city told Reuters news service.

"What difference does the arrival of the Americans make?" said an Arabic-speaking fighter. "This is our home now and we are at war."

It is believed that the regime still has as many as 17,000 soldiers and possibly hundreds of tanks to defend the city, the Taliban's spiritual base. Refugees from the besieged city said Taliban soldiers had set up anti-aircraft guns, mortars and other artillery on hilltops around the perimeter, but the town center was virtually deserted.

The First Combat Loss

There was also a focus on the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif. The CIA, in an unusual move, acknowledged an agent had been killed there in an uprising of Taliban prisoners that began over the weekend.