The military situation for coalition forces in northern and western Afghanistan has improved, though there remain pockets of resistance, but the situation remains unsettled in the southern and eastern regions, U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld says.

"The pressure on al-Qaida and the Taliban is continuing to grow," Rumsfeld said at a Pentagon briefing December 4. "In Kandahar, the hope remains that Taliban and al-Qaida forces will surrender."

However Rumsfeld added that there is a serious concern that Taliban leader Mohammad Omar has instructed his forces not to surrender and to continue fighting, which puts civilians in the Kandahar area at substantial risk. By hiding in the city, the Taliban are effectively using the civilians as shields, he said.

"The situation in Kandahar is complicated, it's not easy, but one thing is clear, the Taliban and al-Qaida will be driven from Kandahar," he said. "The choice really is theirs as to how it happens."

And Air Force General Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the U.S. Marines and other coalition forces operating from their forward operating base have begun interdicting lines of communication south of Kandahar. "In eastern Afghanistan, we have focused our air attacks on cave and tunnel complexes, basically from Kabul to the Khyber Pass," he said.

The U.S.-led coalition is also preparing airfields in northern Afghanistan to support humanitarian assistance operations, which will help increase the flow of food and other necessities to the Afghan people, he said at the briefing.

Myers said the coalition used 100 strike aircraft, which included 80 ship-based aircraft, 10 land-based aircraft and 10 long-range bombers to strike at five planned target areas December 3. All the strikes were concentrated against the al-Qaida and Taliban cave and tunnel complexes, primarily in the Jalalabad and Kandahar regions. In addition, one C-17 cargo jet dropped 17,000 humanitarian daily rations December 3, bringing the total daily rations dropped to 2.143 million, he said.