US forces dropped the largest bomb in their arsenal on a cave complex near Tora Bora over the weekend, in the belief that senior Al-Qaeda leaders - and possibly Osama bin Laden - may have been inside and would either be killed, buried alive or sufficiently rattled to give up the fight.

Joint Staff spokesman Rear Admiral John Stufflebeem said that a munition with 15,000 pounds of explosive capability has a psychological effect when it hits a very narrowly defined area. "This cave complex is... on the sheer walls of a valley, and therefore the reverberation... in those caves should have... a negative effect." He added: "That cave target should no longer be usable for anybody to get in or out of."

According to a Defense official, this was the third "Daisy Cutter" bomb used since the start of Operation Enduring Freedom on Oct. 7th .The 15,000-pound bomb is not only deadly, but deafening and frightening as well. While 500-pound bombs have regularly been used to destroy cave entrances, the Daisy Cutter packs a psychological punch specifically targeted for al-Qaeda leaders.

"In this case, we used a bigger weapon," Stufflebeem said. "This has been their sanctuary. To deny it, means getting at the leadership and... and the areas that have been their comfort haven." But the effectiveness of this particular strike is still unknown as there is still heavy fighting in the area between al Qaeda and anti-Taleban forces.

The Pentagon is largely relying on Afghan fighters for dangerous cave-clearing missions. The former Taleban stronghold of Kandahar remains "quiet but tense." More than 1,000 US Marines nearby have met no resistance nor fired their weapons in more than 48 hours.

According to Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, many Taleban were able to escape Kandahar after the city fell to the opposition, but he does not believe there was any kind of covert deal with the anti-Taleban forces. The opposition forces have taken at least three senior leaders of the Taleban prisoner, Wolfowitz said. Some are under the control of Gen. Dostum, based in Mazar-e-Sharif. The bloody, three-day prison riot there taught the opposition to guard their prisoners carefully. Wolfowitz believes the US will have access to any prisoners it wants. "There's no one that is in the hands of the opposition that we're not pretty sure they now know we want them, and they'll safeguard them properly," he said. "We have captured, to my knowledge, at least one, and I think two or three important Taleban leaders, but there are many others still to go, and Mullah Omar, of course, is the one we're most interested in getting."

Taleban spiritual leader Mohammed Omar is believed to be still near Kandahar. Bin Laden - believed to be in Tora Bora - and Omar remain elusive, but Wolfowitz is confident their influence and control is waning. "This is a man on the run, a man with a big price on his head," Wolfowitz said of bin Laden. "It seems to me a ... reasonable assumption that we have substantially degraded his ability to communicate with other elements of his organization outside of Afghanistan. I think we have probably substantially reduced his authority over people who might be inclined to listen to him."

With the opposition's rapid gains throughout Afghanistan, the fight has come to be almost entirely located in the mountainous cave complex of Tora Bora, south of Jalalabad near the border with Pakistan. US Special Forces are accompanying those fighting in that area, helping to call in air strikes and to re-supply fighters there.

Deciding which opposition groups get re-supplied elsewhere in the country is a more complicated decision because the loyalties and agendas of the infantry - some of whom are recent defectors - are in doubt. Wolfowitz says the situation is very different from what it was six or eight weeks ago "when we knew the people we needed to supply, who were engaged in heavy fighting with Taleban, and what the weapons were going to be used for.... [Now] we are getting some... people who have changed sides, who suddenly need weapons. We'd like to make sure that those weapons are going to be used to advance our objectives and not to get involved in some internal fight in Afghanistan."

Also complicating the re-supply mission is the fact that some of the Afghan fighters are armed with Russian weapons. US Special Forces cannot supply them with appropriate weapons and ammunition, but the CIA can.

Wolfowitz, long an advocate of overthrowing Saddam Hussein in Iraq with the use of local opposition forces there, cautioned against thinking that the war in Afghanistan is largely over. "We must not... think that it is all over.... There's a lot more work to be done," he said. "It's a classic military mistake to leave a partially defeated enemy on the battlefield." On December 9th, US strike forces flew 157 attack sorties into Afghanistan.

According to Pentagon spokeswoman Victoria Clarke, a relatively small number of Marines are securing the old US Embassy in Kabul. John Walker, the American who fought for the Taleban is in US custody at "Camp Rhino" south of Kandahar, she said. He is getting medical treatment and is treated humanely, but she could not say if he had been given access to a lawyer. Walker could face a trial in the United States, possibly for treason and conspiracy. Marines are constructing detention facilities at Camp Rhino for an undisclosed number of other prisoners to be questioned.

Two kinds of deception are being practiced in connection with the horrible slaughter of Taleban prisoners at the Qaila Jangi fortress near Mazar-e-Sharif. The first is the 'hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil' approach of the US media, which hardly report the atrocity. As even the mildest criticism is regarded as a sign of sedition, the US media stick to an uncritically patriotic line, leaving atrocities committed by "our side" unmentioned or under-reported.

The Canadian media practice another kind of deception. They have a little more leeway. Canadians are less happy to see Afghans killed than Americans, so Canadian reporters can get away with a little more. They are therefore ready to acknowledge that the Mazar-e-Sharif story is being suppressed in the US.

What happened? Foreign Taleban troops - mostly Pakistanis, Chechens and Arabs - were being held at the ancient Qaila Jangi fortress outside Mazar-e-Sharif. They had negotiated surrender with Northern Alliance General Rashid Dostum, who said they would be allowed safe passage to Pakistan. Afghan Taleban troops had already been allowed to return to their home villages or had been integrated into Northern Alliance units.

A skirmish erupted inside the fortress walls. Why is unclear. The official story became "this was not a massacre, it was a battle" (it was both) and that some Taleban fighters smuggled arms into the prison. This story stinks. Why would fighters lay down their arms, allow themselves to be herded into a fortress surrounded on all sides by Northern Alliance troops and US and British special forces, and then, when they are most vulnerable, dozens of them with their hands bound behind their backs, resume the battle?

U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had said days earlier he didn't want to see foreign Taleban fighters go free. Dead or confined to prison was the outcome he preferred. But dead or confined to prison would not be the outcome if Dostum kept his word. Who was going to prevail: Dostum or Rumsfeld? The question doesn't even need to be asked. American forces were in control at Qaila Jangi, indeed in control of the Northern Alliance and much of the country, a point that may suddenly and shockingly have occurred to the prisoners inside the fortress walls. They were not going to Pakistan. Indeed, they probably were not going to live. Did they realize they had been double-crossed, that there was nothing left but to fight?

Once the uprising had begun, the Taleban's jailers had two options: kill everyone or bring the riot under control. They chose to hand Rumsfeld his wish. American forces called in air strikes. And not just jet fighters to drop bombs, but low-flying Hercules aircraft, specially outfitted to take out ground troops. According to Northern Alliance sources, US bombs killed most of the Taleban.

But the Globe and Mail reported: "The revolt was crushed... with the combined efforts of Alliance troops plus US and British special forces." If a brutal massacre had occurred, not only Northern Alliance troops but US and British special forces too had perpetrated it. However, the Globe and Mail decided to conclude: "Hundreds of pro-Taleban Afghans and foreigners killed this week in a prison uprising...were ruthlessly butchered by their Northern Alliance foes... US forces may have been guilty of failing to intervene to prevent atrocities".

The ruthless butchering of Taleban prisoners by US air strikes and US/British special forces was ignored.

About 1,000 bodies, victims of fighting between Taleban and opposition forces, are believed to be lying around Kandahar airport, humanitarian sources in Kabul said today citing witnesses. "The fighting was very fierce and lasted for a long time. We believe that this figure of 1,000 dead is not unrealistic."

The southern city of Kandahar, the Taleban's last bastion, surrendered to Pashtun tribal forces on Friday. It has a number of airports (including a civilian one where the bodies were left) and a military airbase.

Dozens of Taleban prisoners died after surrendering to Northern Alliance forces, asphyxiated in the shipping containers used to transport them to prison.

Colonel-General Jurabek, the Northern Alliance commander in charge of some 3,000 prisoners being held here, said that 43 prisoners had died in six containers used to transport them from injuries or asphyxiation.

The deaths occurred as the prisoners, many of whom were foreign fighters for the Taleban, were brought from the town of Konduz to the Sheberghan prison, a journey taking two to three days. Several Pakistani prisoners, interviewed by a US-based daily in the prison, also said that dozens of people had died in the containers during the journey.

Three others died from their wounds after arrival, and had been given a Muslim burial at the town of Dasht-i-Laili, Jurabek said. Omar, a pale thin young prisoner, who clutched a blanket round his head and shoulders, was quoted as saying that all but seven people in his container had died from lack of air. He estimated that more than 100 had died altogether. Another Pakistani said that 13 had died in his container and survivors had taken turns to breathe through a hole in the metal wall.

Faced with transporting thousands of potentially dangerous prisoners in the wake of an uprising near Mazar-e-Sharif, the Alliance packed many of the detained into sealed shipping containers for the journey from Konduz to Sheberghan, the hometown of Uzbek General Abdul Rashid Dostum. Shipping containers line the roads of Afghanistan and are frequently used not only to hold and transport prisoners, but as shops where all sorts of items are for sale.

Gen Jurabek, who oversees the largest detention centre for Taleban prisoners in northern Afghanistan, watched from his upstairs room in the gatehouse of the prison as a container packed with people was backed into the prison courtyard below. More prisoners are arriving at the prison every day. After several days of barring journalists on security grounds, the authorities have now opened the prison gates to foreign visitors. The prisoners have been registered, questioned and the badly wounded have been transferred to a newly secured wing of the local hospital. New kitchens and barrels of drinking water have been set up for them.