Taliban fighters are beginning to withdraw from the Afghan town of Spin Boldak near the Pakistan border.
As they were leaving, US warplanes roared overhead towards the Taliban stronghold of Kandahar, witnesses said.
Scores of pickup trucks - their lights extinguished - were driving out of Spin Boldak and south into the desert of southern Afghanistan.
In Kandahar, a resident said he could hear planes overhead and see large flashes on the horizon from the direction of the airport, some 20 km to the southeast.
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Kandahar, powerbase of Taliban supreme leader Mullah Mohammad Omar, is the last bastion of the fundamentalist movement since their northern base of Kunduz crumbled in the face of a Northern Alliance advance today.