WASHINGTON/KABUL, 21 December — The UN Security Council yesterday authorized a six-month deployment of a multinational security force to Kabul and its environs as US agents quizzed captured Taleban and Al-Qaeda fighters for leads in the massive manhunt for Osama Bin Laden.

The force, which diplomats said will comprise several thousand people from Britain, France and several other NATO states, was set to begin deployment tomorrow, with deployment of initial British troops.

The force, laid out in a historic agreement reached in Bonn on Dec. 5 by rival Afghan factions, has a mandate to maintain security in and around the Afghan capital to assure proper functioning of Afghanistan’s interim government.

Pakistani security forces and Al-Qaeda fighters, meanwhile, fought new gunbattles in hills near the Afghan border yesterday after a breakout which has now left 17 dead, officials said.

Two Arab fighters of Bin Laden’s militant outfit were killed in clashes with security forces, one died overnight from wounds suffered in a gunbattle Wednesday and another police official was also shot dead, an Interior Ministry official told AFP.

The 25 escaped prisoners took refuge in the Narary hills in the Khurram tribal region, near the northwestern city of Parachinar, but only five were left at large at the end of the day.

Asked whether the detainees will be handed over to the US authorities or extradited to their home countries, government spokesman Aziz Ahmed Khan said: "Each case will be decided on merit."

The United States said it will seek extradition of Bin Laden and any other senior Al-Qaeda or Taleban leaders captured in Afghanistan or Pakistan.

Pakistani secret service agents said they detained Aminullah Amin, a senior security official of the Taleban, in their first such seizure since the overthrow of the militia.

In Kabul, Afghans have warned Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Abdul Sattar to stay away from the inauguration of the country’s new government tomorrow.

A contingent of some 200 British marines will be deployed in the capital in time for the transfer of power to the interim government headed by Hamid Karzai, a Pashtun military leader allied to the former Afghan King Muhammad Zahir Shah now living in Rome.

Afghan authorities yesterday ordered gunmen off the streets of Kabul, two days before the installation of the interim government.

Germany has expressed opposition to the strong role to be played by the US military in the command of the force.

An adviser to outgoing Afghan President Burhanuddin Rabbani said yesterday German, not British troops, should lead the force and patrol the streets of Kabul because of Britain’s military interference in the country in the 19th and 20th centuries.

In Washington, US officials admit to not knowing whether Bin Laden is alive, dead, still hiding in Afghanistan or long gone.