Residents contacted by telephone said overjoyed citizens poured into the streets carrying pictures of Afghanistan's deposed king. Others tore down the Taliban's white flag in favor of Afghanistan's old royal red, black and green ensign.

"The Taliban rule is finished. As of today they are no longer a part of Afghanistan," the new Afghan interim prime minister, Hamid Karzai, said in a satellite telephone interview.

With Taliban power finished, the United States is focusing on its remaining objective -- apprehending Osama bin Laden.

In the east, American warplanes pounded the mountains around Tora Bora, where tribal commanders were increasingly certain bin Laden was hiding.

Backing away from their vow to defend Kandahar to the death, the Taliban had agreed Thursday to hand their weapons over to a tribal leader and surrender the city, the Taliban's birthplace and last stand. But when tribal forces moved in Friday to implement the agreement, most of the Taliban were gone and Omar's whereabouts were unknown, according to Karzai.

President Bush rejected "a truce or a treaty" with any Taliban or terrorist enemy in Afghanistan. "Like all fascists, the terrorists cannot be appeased. They must be defeated," he said.

Fugitives sought

The murky surrender of Kandahar made no mention of bin Laden or the hundreds of Arabs, Pakistanis, Chechens and other foreign fighters who follow him. On Friday, Afghanistan's new administration promised to capture foreign al-Qaida fighters and Taliban leaders and bring them to trial.

"For the people who have on their hands the blood of the Afghan people, there is no general amnesty," Younus Qanooni, the new interior minister, said on a visit to India.

Bush's chief of staff, Andy Card, said that U.S. officials didn't think Omar had left Kandahar. "We're pretty sure he's in Kandahar," he said.

The South Asian Dispatch Agency, based in Pakistan, quoted Omar's spokesman Syed Tayyab Agha as saying both he and the Taliban chief remained in Kandahar.

"I am here and will remain here until otherwise ordered," Agha was quoted as saying. "As long as Mullah Omar is here, I will be here. Many of our people are still in this city."

Karzai said he believed Omar and what's left of the Taliban and al-Qaida headed for mountain hide-outs in Zabul province, northeast of Kandahar. An old friend of Karzai's, fellow Taliban founder Mullah Mohammed Khaqzar, said the Taliban leader fled the city before the surrender.

Karzai, after ambiguous statements on Thursday, vowed Friday to bring Omar to justice.

"Of course I want to arrest him," he said. "I have given him every chance to denounce terrorism and now the time has run out. He is an absconder, a fugitive from justice."

Action in Kandahar

Gen. Tommy Franks, chief of the U.S. Central Command, said U.S. forces used ground and air forces to attack Taliban troops fleeing Kandahar.

Some residents, however, reported some departing Taliban turned in their weapons. Looting and gunfire were reported in some parts, but by nightfall a commander overseeing the handover said peace had returned. "The process of surrender has been completed and now the city is calm and peaceful," Haji Bashar said.

U.S. Marines patrolling a road near Kandahar attacked a three-car Taliban convoy early Friday, killing seven people in their first ground combat since setting up base in the desert near Kandahar on Nov. 25.

U.S. warplanes bombed areas around the city -- presumably pockets of resistance or Taliban and al-Qaida fighters trying to escape. One of the pockets of Taliban that remained, according to Franks, was a group south of the city of Kunduz, though they are not fighting and are in talks with the northern alliance.

Meanwhile, in the east, the White Mountains filled with smoke and dust as American jets bombed positions of Arab fighters loyal to bin Laden around his Tora Bora cave complex.

Factions quarrel

The Taliban began surrendering Kandahar after two months of U.S. airstrikes and advances by opposition forces that drove them from most of the country. The United States launched its military campaign against them after they refused to hand over bin Laden, who the United States believes orchestrated the Sept. 11 attacks.

Under the surrender agreement, control of the city was transferred to a tribal council. But one faction under former Kandahar governor Gul Agha has refused to recognize the authority of another under Mullah Naqib Ullah.

Khalid Pashtun, an ally of Agha, told Britain's Channel 4 News that Mullah Naqib Ullah was holding Omar "in a friendly environment."

He also claimed about 250 Arabs were holding out in the southern part of the city. Efforts to contact Mullah Naqib Ullah's faction were unsuccessful.

Karzai confirmed that chaos had broken out in several areas within Kandahar as a result of the Taliban's flight. But he said there was no fighting among rival anti-Taliban forces.

However, frightened residents reported skirmishes among armed gangs. Speaking by satellite telephone from the city, one resident said armed men had set up checkpoints on some main roads.