Kandahar

KABUL, Afghanistan -- Four Canadian soldiers were killed yesterday when their vehicle was blown up by a roadside bomb in southern Afghanistan, Canadian military officials said. The explosion hit their patrol in the mountainous Shah Wali Kot district of Kandahar province, where Canadian troops took over from U.S. forces last month and where complaints about their actions had started to emerge from villagers. Three of the soldiers were killed instantly, and the fourth died at a military hospital after being transported to Kandahar, a Canadian military spokesman, Maj. Quentin Innis, said by telephone.

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - A highly publicized U.S. Special Forces raid last week against two suspected Taliban compounds mistakenly attacked friendly Afghan forces, leading to the death and capture of anti-Taliban fighters, Afghan officials say. "This is most probably someone giving the wrong information to the Americans," said Yusef Pashtun, the spokesman for Gul Argha Sharzai, governor of Kandahar province, where the Special Forces troops are based....

KABUL, Afghanistan - Thousands of frightened villagers fled a district in southern Afghanistan that was overrun by Taliban fighters, as NATO and Afghan forces flew in hundreds of reinforcements yesterday to confront the insurgents. About 700 Afghan troops were airlifted to the main coalition base outside Kandahar after Taliban fighters moved into nearly a dozen villages in the strategic Arghandab district, a fertile swath of land 10 miles northwest of Kandahar. Canadian troops, who have the primary responsibility for securing Kandahar and its environs, were also repositioning themselves in response to the developments, said NATO spokesman Mark Laity.

KANDAHAR AIR BASE, Afghanistan - U.S. Special Forces attacked a Taliban headquarters north of Kandahar early yesterday, killing at least 14 Afghan fighters and capturing more than two dozen, in the largest clash involving American ground troops in Afghanistan, U.S. officials said. One American soldier was shot in the ankle in the pre-dawn firefight with Taliban forces about 60 miles from Kandahar, the former political and spiritual capital of the militant Islamic militia. The simultaneous strikes against two Taliban leadership compounds less than 10 miles apart shortly after midnight suggested that U.S. forces hoped to use the element of surprise to seize top militia leaders as well as their computer hard drives and phone books, which have proved valuable in tracking down other terrorist cells.

KABUL, Afghanistan -- An anti-Taliban militia leader was the apparent target of a suicide bombing yesterday in southern Afghanistan that left at least 80 people dead and dozens injured, authorities said. The bombing at a dogfighting match just outside Kandahar was thought to have been the deadliest single suicide attack since the Taliban movement was driven from power more than six years ago. Authorities said the apparent target was militia leader Abdul Hakim Jan, who was killed in the explosion.

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - As warlords have carved out chunks of Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban, the lawlessness that gave rise to the strict Islamic movement in the mid-1990s has begun to spread, once again, across this country. The U.S.-led military campaign that began Oct. 7 has succeeded in eradicating most of the Taliban and al-Qaida from Afghanistan, but it has returned to power nearly all of the same warlords who had misruled the country in the days before the Taliban. The warlords have all pledged loyalty to the interim government in Kabul.

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - Backed by helicopter gunships and Harrier jets, a convoy carrying about 200 U.S. Marines rumbled out of Kandahar before dawn yesterday to secure an abandoned Taliban compound in what amounted to the most extensive U.S. ground operation in the war. The Marines headed west of Kandahar, the former Taliban stronghold, into neighboring Helmand province, which has become the focus of U.S. military activity in recent days. Until now, the Marines had been largely restricted to Kandahar's airport and a desert base southwest of here, reflecting U.S. concerns that ground operations would increase the possibility of casualties.

SESTRIERE, Italy -- The opening ceremony is over and it's downhill from here, starting today with alpine skiing's signature event atop Kandahar Banchetta Giovanni Nasi. Super-Gs are super, the combined is a kick and slaloms are slick, but "Olympic downhill champion" is a designation you take to your grave. Alpine skiing 7 p.m. to 11:30 p.m., chs. 11, 4

WASHINGTON - After 12 days of heavy bombardment, the southern Afghanistan city of Kandahar has collapsed into a state of "pre-Taliban lawlessness," with Arab fighters once loyal to the ruling Taliban regime taking over homes, looting stores, and battling Taliban police in street gunbattles, a senior relief organization official said yesterday. Nearly 1,000 Arab fighters, soldiers linked to suspected terrorist Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network, have been forced out of their four barracks by the U.S.-led strikes and have holed up in civilian homes around Kandahar.

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - Officials in southern Afghanistan said yesterday that they were planning a military campaign to capture Mullah Mohammed Omar, the former Taliban leader they believe is hiding in a mountainous region about 100 miles northwest of here. Omar, who escaped from Kandahar before it fell to U.S.-backed forces in mid-December, is being protected by 2,500 to 3,000 loyal soldiers who control Baghran district in Helmand province, according to the officials, who work under Gul Agha Shirzai.