ASHINGTON, Nov. 21 — With Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters still resisting in Kandahar and smaller pockets, the Pentagon continues to bolster American forces near Afghanistan, asking Uzebekistan to accept three AC-130 Special Forces gunships and planning to base warplanes in two other Central Asian nations, senior officials said today.

The movement of aircraft closer to their targets — including F-15E fighter-bombers and A-10 attack jets to be deployed for the first time in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan — is intended to intensify pressure on the remaining Taliban and Al Qaeda forces.

At the same time, the Pentagon expanded its net for trapping anyone who flees, putting additional troops on the ground and for the first time using the experimental reconnaissance aircraft Global Hawk to hunt down potential targets as they hide or flee.

The Pentagon also announced today that American warships in the North Arabian Sea would begin intercepting ships suspected of ferrying out Al Qaeda leaders or matériel as they leave Pakistan.

"As a precautionary measure, as you would expect us to, we are looking at how they might try to flee the country," Gen. Peter Pace of the Marine Corps, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said today, referring to Al Qaeda leaders. "One way they might try to flee is by ship, so we're making sure we have the assets in place to handle that if it happens."

Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld said today that dismantling the Al Qaeda network inside Afghanistan would require even more American and allied forces, including more Special Operations troops and aircraft.

"The way you have to do that obviously is to purse those individuals and organizations and forces wherever they are in that country," Mr. Rumsfeld said as he traveled to Pope Air Force Base, near Fort Bragg, N.C., where he visited the headquarters of the Army's Special Operations command.

"They're in a couple of enclaves, large enclaves, in Kunduz and Kandahar," he said, speaking before reports that the Taliban was ending its resistance in Kunduz. "They also are in a number of smaller enclaves spotted all around the country. And there are certainly individuals, we are sure, hiding in caves and tunnels. And we intend to pursue them."

Gen. Tommy R. Franks of the Army, the American commander of the war in Afghanistan, also suggested today that the United States was prepared to deploy conventional forces "in small numbers" inside the country for the first time.

"We have not taken that off the table," he said.

General Franks visited Afghanistan for the first time today, meeting with opposition commanders from the Northern Alliance at airfields in Baghram and Mazar-i-Sharif to continue to coordinate both strategy against the Taliban and humanitarian relief.

"We have a great deal of work left to do," he told reporters in Uzbekistan's capital, Tashkent, after his brief visit to Afghanistan. He added that "all forms of military forces stay on the table and possibly one or other type of forces will be deployed in Afghanistan."

Although General Franks declined to elaborate, officials said that the Pentagon was prepared to send hundreds of marines into Afghanistan from amphibious assault ships now in the North Arabian Sea. The troops, members of the 15th and 26th Marine Expeditionary Units, are equipped for sustained operations and may operate from makeshift bases in Afghan territory for days at a time, according to a retired senior officer still close to Pentagon commanders.

"We can already operate fairly freely within the borders of Afghanistan," a Department of Defense official said today.

An example of that came after an accident involving an Army Special Operations helicopter in southern Afghanistan on Tuesday. The helicopter, an MH-6J "Little Bird" reconnaissance helicopter, crashed in what the Pentagon called "a hard landing," injuring its four crewmen.

The crew and the helicopter itself were flown out of Afghanistan aboard a C-130 cargo aircraft , which requires at least a minimal airstrip to land and take off. One officer suggested that the accident and the rescue took place in what amounted to a forward operating base already inside the country.

"Put it this way," one officer said, "it was not in hostile territory."

In remarks to reporters and to troops at Fort Bragg, Mr. Rumsfeld made it clear the Pentagon would not let up its pursuit. He said that more Special Operations forces were giving "broader and deeper coverage" of pockets of resistance and that warplanes had had some success in killing Al Qaeda and Taliban leaders, though he declined to be specific.

Other American officials said today that they had received credible reports suggesting that another important terrorist leader had been killed in Afghanistan.

One intelligence official said that Juma Namangani, the field commander of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, which seeks to transform all of Central Asia into a single militant Islamic state, was believed to have been killed somewhere in northern Afghanistan. This reportedly happened several days before the death of Mohammed Atef, a senior lieutenant to Osama bin Laden, who was killed in a bombing raid last week.

While there were some conflicting reports, one intelligence official said, the preponderance of evidence suggests that Mr. Namangani was dead.

Mr. Rumsfeld, after addressing hundreds of soldiers at the Army's Special Operations Command, suggested that the Pentagon would continue moving forces into Afghanistan to help in the hunt for Mr. bin Laden. "We will have to put forces on the ground that will enable us to do that," he said.

He announced that the Pentagon had asked that strike aircraft be based in Uzbekistan, which until now has agreed to permit only reconnaissance, search and rescue and cargo aircraft.

At the Pentagon, a senior officer said the three AC-130 gunships operated by the Air Force's Special Forces could arrive in Uzbekistan within days, allowing intensified attacks on concentrations of enemy troops.

Six other AC-130's have been operating out of a base in Oman.

As he has repeatedly in recent days, Mr. Rumsfeld said that it was his preference that the Northern Alliance not allow non-Afghan fighters to leave the country. He has said that American officers with the opposition are asking Northern Alliance commanders to either kill or capture those fighters.

"There's Chinese in there, there's Chechens in there, there's Arabs in there, there's Al Qaeda in there," he said. "Any idea that those people should be let loose on any basis at all, to leave that country and go bring terror to other counties, is unacceptable."