AFGHANISTAN - Nov. 27 - US Marines Deployed Near Kandahar.

The head of US Central Command Gen. Tommy Franks says about 1,000 Marines have begun operating from the new base near Kandahar. He makes it clear that the troops will not be used in any ground offensive against the city, saying: "The purpose of the forward operating base is to give us a capability to be an awful lot closer to the core objectives we seek" - the destruction of the Taliban and Al Qaida. He says Kandahar is a "confused place right now" with non-Afghan supporters of the Taliban trying to find a way to get out of the city. In Kandahar, Taliban troops vowed a fight to the death, as US warplanes pounded them from the air and tribal militias moved towards the city from the north and the south. US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld cautioned that the situation in Kunduz, other cities, and particularly the countryside, remained dangerous. He said: "Anyone who thinks it's over in those towns is just wrong". Overall, however, he said operations were proceeding "exceedingly well". Rumsfeld, meanwhile, denied some media reports that the Pentagon covered up US casualties or deaths, saying: "The suggestion that there is something that I know about the deaths of a US military person in Afghanistan is false". (Five US soldiers were reported injured - three seriously - by US bombs in a friendly fire incident near Mazar-i-Sharif).