Scramble to cut off Taliban escape routes

Crusading radical editor David Astor dies aged 89the qualities of serious and popular papers. He was a brilliant spotter of writers, though he had difficulty in writing himself."

Astor was the son of the second Viscout Astor of Hever and his wife Nancy, the first woman to be elected to Parliament. Mr Trelford said he was unfazed by politicians, having grown up among them with his family at Cliveden. He recalled Astor taking an angry phone call from Harold Wilson, Labour prime minister for part of the 1960s and 1970s.

Astor's final words to him were: "I have had conversations with several prime ministers since I was editor of the Observer - and I expect to meet about another seven in my time here. Good afternoon".

The ex-BBC political editor and former Guardian deputy editor, John Cole, an Observer executive with Astor in the mid-1970s, said: "He subscribed to the dictum of CP Scott [Manchester Guardian editor from 1872 to1929] that the purpose of serious journalism was 'to bear on the minds and consciences of men'. Astor did that over Suez, decolonisation in Africa and a variety of social issues at home, including the protection of battered wives".

Another ex-colleague said that Astor had for years privately funded the first battered wives' refuge in Britain. Katharine Whitehorn, an Observer columnist from 1960 to 1996, recalled how he had surrounded himself with unconventional colleagues and contributors, including the literary editor Terence Kilmartin - whom he had met on a Special Operations Executive parachute drop in France in the second world war.

Yet Astor passionately believed journalists should not take sides on issues. For this reason, he never voted. ery courageous over Suez. He also made his paper into the great African crusading paper. He represented the liberal centre. It was through him that I learned to be a journalist. He inspired others into good journalism - I still don't quite understand how".

Mr Trelford, Observer editor from 1975 to 1993, said: "He created a nperating off the Pakistani coast should expect to be monitored.

"Anyone suspected of assisting or transporting bin Laden and/or al-Qaida leadership should expect to be boarded and will risk the sinking or seizure of the vessel and will be detained and jailed," a Pentagon official said.

The US naval action underlined the fact that the allies have failed to seal Pakistan's porous borders. Defiant foreign Taliban forces were being treated in Quetta General Hospital yesterday.

"Anyone who is not a Muslim, get out of my face!" shouted Abdul Rehman, a 36-year-old Saudi Arabian, from his hospital bed.

His success in slipping across the border showed that America may struggle to achieve its ultimate war aims of wiping out the Taliban and al-Qaida, despite the successes of the past few days. The difficulty of placing large numbers of troops inside Afghanistan has meant that the Americans has been powerless to control events on the ground at crucial moments.

This was vividly demonstrated during the surrender of Kandahar. Hours after the deal was agreed foreign forces slipped out of the city, to the fury of Hamid Karzai, who brokered the deal, and US forces camped outside the city.

"The Taliban ran away with their weapons," he said. "Basically they have just run away. The leaders and the soldiers - they have all run away from the city."

The Afghan Talibans surrendered in an orderly fashion yesterday, as did other Taliban fighters across Afghanistan. This marked the final demise of the Taliban as a regime in its birthplace.

But the Arab fighters loyal to Bin Laden headed off to a remote mountain range in in Zabul province of southern Afghanistan with their weapons in pick-up trucks.

Mullah Mohammad Khaksar, the most senior Taliban defector to the Northern Alliance, yesterday said: "Most of the hardliners will go to the mountains and try to fight the new regime from there.

"The top 20 Taliban leaders will probably try and do this. I don't think the Arabs and Pakistanis should be forgiven. It was because of them that US aircraft came to Afghanistan and bombed our country, killing thousands of people."

The Arab fighters, who knew that the amnesty on offer would not apply to them, are believed to have drawn up a secret plan to regroup in the mountains. If so, they will be hard to track down.

The road north out of Kandahar leads past the crumbling ruins of abandoned caravanserai and then offers several remote tracks that lead to numerous hidden scree-covered peaks.

Between 1,000-1,500 Arab fighters refused to surrender last month in Jalalabad and instead took to the surrounding Tora Bora mountains. It seems the foreign fighters who have fled Kandahar are repeating the same tactic.

Pashtun tribesmen who have been fighting the Taliban in southern Afghanistan will sooner or later have to flush the Arabs out, probably with American assistance.

In an interview with the BBC, Hamid Karzai demanded that Mullah Omar should distance himself from Bin Laden.

"I asked clearly that Mullah Omar renounce terrorism. That has not taken place," he said, speaking by satellite phone from Shahwali Kot, north of Kandahar. "If there is a case against him, as any other man, he must face trial and justice.

"I want to arrest him," Mr Karzai said. "He is an absconder, a fugitive from justice.

"For the higher-ranking Taliban, if there is a case against them they must face trial."

But Mullah Khaksar, a former Taliban minister, last night said the Taliban leader was unlikely to surrender.

"Mullah Omar thinks he can fight in the future. But he can't do it. He can't fight. Everyone in Afghanistan is bored of fighting."

Asked what Mullah Omar was like, he replied: "The same as us. No different."

US military officials insisted the war in Afghanistan would be pursued without pause until the al-Qaida and Taliban leadership were hunted down.

"We're tightening the noose but the way ahead is one where we'll find a dirty environment and a very dangerous environment," said Gen Franks.

"We still have an awful lot of work to do."