About 3,500 frightened Afghans poured into Pakistan today, U.N. officials and witnesses said, fleeing heavy nighttime attacks by U.S. aircraft on the Taliban stronghold of Kandahar that one refugee described as "horrible, horrible."
The refugees, mostly women and children, walked across the border at the Chaman crossing lugging suitcases and balancing bundles of clothing on their heads. They were allowed into Pakistani territory despite government orders that the border be sealed to everyone without travel documents.
The exodus marked the highest one-day refugee flow from southwestern Afghanistan since U.S. forces began bombing Taliban targets 13 days ago, according to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. It was seen as a dramatic measure of the ferocity of U.S. airstrikes against Kandahar, a city 120 miles northwest of here that has been the headquarters of Mohammad Omar, leader of Afghanistan's ruling Taliban movement.
As the attacks have intensified, the number of Afghans moving across the border has risen markedly, particularly in the past three days. The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees estimated that 10,000 have arrived here in Baluchistan province, opposite southwestern Afghanistan, in the last six days, including 2,700 who trudged to the border crossing on Wednesday and Thursday.
The U.N. agency estimated that, despite the border closure, 30,000 Afghans have fled to Pakistan since bombing began Oct. 7, many of them crossing on isolated tracks away from the heavily patrolled official crossings. They join more than 2 million Afghans already driven into Pakistan by the more than two decades of warfare that has torn the country apart.
Pakistan closed its border in an effort to prevent a flood of new refugees, which aid officials estimate could number a million or more if unchecked. As part of that effort, those who crossed today were not directed to any specific refugee camp by Pakistani authorities, but were left largely to fend for themselves or seek assistance from friends and relatives in Pakistan.
"Our border monitors reported that about 3,500 people, mostly women and children, entered Pakistan at the Chaman border crossing on Friday," said Fatoumata Kaba, a spokeswoman for the refugee agency.
At the United Nations, Ruud Lubbers, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, said he expected the refugee flight underway to "grow exponentially" in the coming weeks, and he pleaded with Pakistan and Iran to open their borders.
"They are just too strict," Lubbers said. Blocking the refugees at the borders, he added, is "creating enormous misery, which is unacceptable."
News services quoted refugees as saying that thousands of people were still trying to enter Pakistan. The accounts could not be verified because the Taliban has largely barred journalists from Afghanistan.
Kaba and refugees interviewed at Chaman said the movement was caused by intense overnight military strikes on targets in and around Kandahar that appeared to have caused panic. Dad Mohammed, a 38-year-old driver who fled with his family, said he decided to leave Afghanistan today after seeing a U.S. AC-130 gunship fire at Taliban forces.
"It was flying low. It almost seemed to stop flying and float at one time," he said of the U.S. plane, a modified C-130 transport that carries a 105mm cannon and a Gatling gun that sprays 1,800 bullets a minute. "Then it began firing. It was like the plane was breathing fire. It was horrible, horrible."
Witnesses said the scene at the border crossing was chaotic. People were entering Pakistan with ashen faces. It seemed that many had fled hastily.
Agha Mohammed, a 45-year-old merchant, said he witnessed a U.S. strike on a telephone office in Kandahar. "At least 20 Taliban were killed there," he said. "All night the Taliban were driving back and forth in their pickup trucks with their rocket launchers and their AK-47s."
Mohammed said that despite the fear, the U.S. assault gave him hope that the Taliban will lose power in Afghanistan.
"They are all under Osama's control," he said, referring to the accused terrorist leader Osama bin Laden, who is being harbored by the Taliban. "I am leaving until they kill him. Then I will go back and, no matter what, be a happier man."
Despite the signs of crumbling morale, the main Taliban envoy to the outside world said in Islamabad, the Pakistani capital, that the movement's leadership remains unified, confident and determined never to turn over bin Laden no matter how long the United States bombs Afghanistan.
Ambassador Abdul Salam Zaeef, speaking on his return after a week of consultations in Kandahar, said that despite the U.S. airstrikes and the prospect of imminent ground assaults, the Taliban leadership has decided to hold firm against U.S. demands that it give up bin Laden, because of Islamic principles regarding a guest.
"We have no change in that," he told reporters gathered on the embassy lawn in Islamabad. "Osama is a faith issue, and we are not going to change our faith."
Zaeef discounted reports that some Taliban officials have indicated to Pakistani intelligence agents they are thinking of defecting. "There are no moderates, and there are no hard-liners," he said. "We are one."
He said the Taliban military has suffered few casualties despite the loss of its infrastructure and is awaiting with "patience" the arrival of ground troops to fight back on more equal terms.
"We know this is going to be a long war," he said. "Therefore, we are going to safeguard our ammunition and our military capabilities."
Despite Zaeef's assertion that Taliban authorities retain control of the country, the Swedish Committee for Afghanistan reported that its aid centers in five Afghan cities have been looted by Taliban militia members and forced to close. Some staff members who sought to intervene were beaten, according to an official of the committee, Sidney Petersson.
Petersson told reporters the centers are in the northern cities of Mazar-e Sharif, which is under attack by forces of the rebel Northern Alliance; Pol-e Khomri; Kunduz; Taloqan, and Ghazni.
Zaeef also sought to underline Taliban reports that the U.S. bombing is taking a growing toll of civilian casualties. He said "the majority" of targets hit since Oct. 7 have been civilian, leading to the loss of innocent lives.
An embassy official said about 400 civilians have been killed. But in Afghanistan, Taliban spokesman Abdul Hai Mutmaen estimated the number between 600 and 800, including people killed today in a residential neighborhood of Kabul, the capital. Neither estimate could be verified.
Taliban officials have particularly denounced an attack Oct. 11 on the village of Kadam near Jalalabad, in northeastern Afghanistan across the border from Peshawar, where they said 160 to 200 civilians were killed. Foreign television crews were taken to the area several days later to interview people who said they lost their families.
An Afghan from the area who is hostile to the Taliban movement said Thursday, however, that a small number of people had died, most of them Arabs assigned to guard an ammunition facility. Taliban officials went to the village before the camera crews arrived to coach residents on what to say, he charged.
Cody reported from Islamabad. Special correspondent Colum Lynch at the United Nations contributed to this report. 
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