United States marines yesterday swept into Kandahar, the Taliban's last bastion in Afghanistan, after the militia's northern city of Kunduz finally crumbled to the Northern Alliance.
An estimated 1,000 troops were transported overnight to the airstrip outside Kandahar as the war against terrorism entered a crucial new phase.
The dramatic development came at the end of another bloody day in Afghanistan, with hundreds reported dead when US warplanes and helicopters quelled a revolt by several hundred prisoners loyal to Osama bin Laden in Mazar-e-Sharif.
In the capital Kabul, 12 military aircraft were reported to have landed in nearby Bagram, carrying a number of army lorries and men in dark blue uniforms.
Reporters were told they were from the Russian emergencies ministry and were headed for the former Russian embassy compound in the city which currently houses between 15,000 and 20,000 Afghan refugees. The men said they were providing humanitarian aid.
The prisoner revolt in Mazar-e-Sharif erupted after about 300 fighters identified as non-Afghan Taliban, including Arabs and Chechens, wielding smuggled weapons, started a firefight in the headquarters of Gen Abdul Rashid Dostum.
The Northern Alliance commander, who captured the town earlier this month, mustered about 500 of his troops to counterattack with the US launching air strikes.
Meanwhile, marines weighed down with rifles, gas masks, shoulder-fired rockets, mortars, knives and ammunition, took off on board six CH53 Super Stallion helicopters to their target, the airfield outside Kandahar early yesterday.
Soldiers from Charlie Company in the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit made up the force that raided the airstrip with air support from Cobra attack helicopters, Harriers and AC-130 gunships.
The road between Kandahar and Spin Boldak on the Pakistan border, a major Taliban supply and escape route, was reported to be cut off by anti-Taliban Pashtun tribesmen. Spin Boldak eventually fell from Taliban control.
Northern Alliance forces yesterday entered Kunduz, the last Taliban stronghold in northern Afghanistan, after cleaning out the final pockets of resistance.
In Kandahar, regarded as the spiritual home of the Taliban and the city from which Mullah Omar launched his sweep of Afghanistan seven years ago, locals feared foreign Taliban fighters, who with nowhere left to run, might make a bloody last stand.
Gen James Mattis of the US said as the Marines departed for Kandahar: "We are going to support the Afghan people's effort to free themselves of the terrorists and the people who support terrorists." The city was under intense air attack as US men and supplies landed at an airport 12 miles south of the city.
Meanwhile, mystery continued over the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden. While there was still strong speculation he may be in Tora Bora in the White Mountain near Jalalabad, the Northern Alliance Foreign Minister, Mr Abdullah Abdullah, said he believed he was with the Taliban leader, Mullah Omar, in Kandahar.
Talks aimed at putting together a broad-based post-Taliban government start today in Bonn in Germany.
The talks will be dominated by the Alliance and supporters of exiled former King Zahir Shah, who comes from the country's biggest ethnic group, the Pashtun. They will have 11 delegates each.
Exiles backed by Pakistan and Iran will have five each.
The Alliance political leader, and former Afghan President, Mr Burhanuddin Rabbani, played down hopes of a swift agreement but held out an olive branch, saying Taliban officials with clean records could join a new administration.