Second day of pitched battles inside prison fortress

Northern alliance troops and captured Osama bin Laden loyalists have fought a second day of pitched battles in a prison fortress.

The rebel prisoners have been firing rocket-propelled grenades at their former captors in Mazar-e-Sharif.

Troops struggled to subdue a band of prisoners who took refuge in one of the towers of the fort.

Hundreds of the prisoners have already been killed in an insurrection that began when captives pulled weapons from their tunics and attacked their guards.

The Pentagon said five US military men were injured in friendly fire but that no US military personnel had been killed.

The violence spilled into a second day despite declarations by the alliance and the Pentagon that the uprising had been quelled.

Alam, an alliance commander outside the fort co-ordinating attacks, said: "They're fighting until death. For this reason, it has continued. They won't hand themselves over alive."

Alam said 2,000 alliance troops were inside the 18th-century fortress, 10 miles west of Mazar-e-Sharif, and more were on the way.

US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld says he doesn't think Taliban leader Mohammed Omar will surrender. He says he doesn't see Omar as "the surrendering type".

The Northern Alliance says he's hiding with Osama bin Laden in southern Afghanistan.