More US Marines were deployed near Kandahar today as Taliban authority crumbled further and Afghan rivals discussed a future without the pariah militia.
As reports of looting, robberies and general lawlessness rose, the United Nations urged leaders meeting in Germany not to let Afghanistan slip into chaos and bloodshed once again.
"To many sceptics, it appears that is precisely that which you are about to do," UN Secretary-General Mr Kofi Annan said in a message to the gathering. "You must prove them wrong," he said.
The Northern Alliance went into talks in Germany aimed at forging an interim Afghan government by promising not to seek to monopolise power in the wake of its military sweep into Kabul.
"I have come to Bonn with high expectations. Our people have behind them a golden era of resistance against oppression. But we are in a new era," Mr Yunus Qanooni, the head of the Alliance delegation, said in his opening speech.
"We have this opportunity now to be champions of peace. Yesterday we were proud to resist aggression, but for us today the continuation of war or monopolising of power is not what we want," he said.
"This is why we are sincere in going into these talks. It is not our intent to monopolise power," Mr Qanooni said during the inaugural session of the UN-sponsored conference near Bonn.
Another member of the Alliance's delegation, Shiite Muslim faction leader Mr Hussein Anwari, said he expected a deal on the formation of an interim government for the country would be struck in three days.
Mr Qanooni, who acts as interior minister for the Alliance, said the coalition of mainly ethnic minority anti-Taliban groups was ready to hand over power to "a legitimate assembly" of Afghans inside the country.
The aim of the conference is to hammer out an agreement on an interim administration that would pave the way for the convening of a "Loya Jirga", or grand assembly of Afghan tribal leaders that would decide on a future government.
The Northern Alliance - dominated by ethnic Tajiks, Uzbeks and Hazaras - took Kabul from the Taliban earlier this month, ignoring warnings from the United States and other Afghan groups not to do so.
This created fears that the Alliance would attempt to cling to power on its own, a scenario that could cause a repeat of the vicious in-fighting that erupted after the collapse of the Moscow-backed Kabul government in 1992.
Meanwhile the US Pentagon said 600 Marines were now in place at the desert airstrip which they seized on Sunday within striking distance of the Taliban's stronghold. More were still sweeping in by air from ships in the northern Indian Ocean.
US Defence Secretary Mr Donald Rumsfeld said their prime goal was to throttle free movement for Osama bin Laden, his al Qaeda operatives and the Taliban who have protected the man blamed for the September 11th airliner attacks on New York and Washington.
The Marines, who have hoisted a US stars and stripes flag over their compound, fought a first engagement overnight, firing from helicopters on a convoy of vehicles heading their way.
US bombers also pounded Kandahar overnight and Afghan tribesmen squeezed the Taliban. A local news agency said 5,000 anti-Taliban Pashtun tribesmen had taken Spin Boldak on the border with Pakistan, which said America's top enemy could not escape.
"We have not left any possibility open that bin Laden can sneak in," a senior Pakistani government official said.
In Mazar-i-Sharif in the north, the alliance and US bombers crushed a revolt by al Qaeda prisoners in which hundreds died. Five US troops were wounded by an errant American bomb.
AFP