Officials: Kabul Captured, But War Goes On

Nov. 14 -- A day after the fall of Kabul, U.S. intelligence sources say Osama bin Laden is on the move as Kandahar, the southern spiritual heart of the Taliban hovers on the brink of falling to the Northern Alliance.

After a series of rapid-fire victories by the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan, the Taliban appeared to be unraveling as U.S. warplanes continue to stalk the southern Afghan skies, hunting down Taliban soldiers retreating from Kabul towards Kandahar.

Amid reports of popular uprisings against the Taliban in eastern and central Afghanistan, U.S. intelligence sources told ABCNEWS that bin Laden, the prime suspect in the Sept. 11 attacks, and his inner circle had left the mountain caves where they were believed to be hiding as U.S. special operations troops into southern Afghanistan were concentrating on the hunt for bin Laden.

Liberated from the Taliban on Tuesday in a surprisingly bloodless seizure, Kabul showed signs of returning to pre-Taliban normalcy today with residents blasting Afghan music, flying kites, shaving their beards and revealing their faces — simple freedoms such that were denied them during five years of the Taliban rule.

But caught off guard by the speed of the Taliban retreat, the international community has been frantically attempting to fill the potentially dangerous power vacuum in Afghanistan despite assurances from the Northern Alliance of their eagerness to cooperate with a potential transitional coalition of multi-ethnic groups.

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And despite the scenes of jubilation on the streets of Kabul, the United States has warned that there's still unfinished business to be dealt with in the war-ravaged country.

"This effort against terrorism and terrorists is far from over," Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said at a press briefing in Washington on Tuesday.

Reports of Advances in the South

Northern Alliance leaders today said the Taliban had lost control of Kandahar, home to the Taliban's reclusive spiritual leader Mulla Mohammad Omar.