Leaving the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad before dawn, Khan _ along with 10 female relatives and 30 children _ walked for 10 hours through the rugged mountains that separate Afghanistan and Pakistan, fearing constantly that Taliban troops would turn them back.

On Wednesday, they made it through, avoiding main roads and sneaking across at an unguarded point of the border Pakistan has closed to Afghan refugees.

"People are very afraid," Khan said after the ragged group reached the safety of Pakistan. "We had to come to Pakistan. We don't want our children to die."

Jalalabad has been repeatedly targeted in the U.S.-led air assault that began Sunday night. Like others Afghans, the Khan clan had been huddling in shelters, listening to the roar of explosives and anti-aircraft fire.

He and other refugees said they left behind a near-ghost town, a city from which almost everyone able to do so has fled. Some left for the countryside; others made for the frontier.

During the day, a few shops have opened, the refugees said. But as nighttime settles on the city, stores are padlocked and the streets are deserted in anticipation of more airstrikes.

"It was getting worse all the time," said Khan, bedraggled and exhausted from the trek. His gray beard was caked with dust and his long tunic and trousers were torn and dirty. "We had no choice."

He recounted leading his clan along narrow mountain paths, constantly afraid they would be spotted. "The children cried _ we were afraid the Taliban would see us and stop us," he said.

In some cases, young children have managed to slip through alone, leaving behind their parents.

Two days ago, 9-year-old Shokria and her 4-year-old brother were traveling with their mother. They became separated and their mother was stopped by the Taliban.

Since then, Shokria has been begging in the border town of Torkham.

"I can't go back, and she can't come here," the girl said, pleading for money or food.

Others said they did not want to leave Afghanistan, but only wanted to save what was most precious to them.

With a gentle hand, Harbhjan Singh handed four Sikh holy books, wrapped in gold-flecked red cloth, to a fellow Sikh on the other side of the giant black gate that separates Afghanistan and Pakistan.

After three nights of airstrikes in Jalalabad, Singh _ part of Afghanistan's minority Sikh community _ decided to bring the holy books to Pakistan for safekeeping.

"We were all so afraid that a bomb would destroy our holy places," he said.

Singh and about a dozen Sikhs brought the books to Pakistan in four separate vehicles _ one for each book _ and handed them to Sikhs waiting on the other side. Out of respect, they made the 45-mile drive barefoot, with the drivers barefoot too.

Other refugees fled the southern Afghan city of Kandahar, the Taliban's home base. Those arriving in Pakistan reported panic and chaos in some parts of the city, but relative calm in others.

"Near the airport, where I live, the situation was very bad," said Deen Mohammed, a shopkeeper arriving at the Pakistani border town of Chaman, 70 miles southeast of Kandahar. The airport has been targeted repeatedly in the U.S. airstrikes.

"The airport was attacked again today, and there was lots of smoke everywhere," said Mohammed. "People were running out of their homes and trying to get away wherever they could." He had already sent his family to safety in Pakistan, and followed them Wednesday.

Gul Ahmed, a carpenter who also lives near the Kandahar airport, said he ran for his life during the raids. But in central Kandahar, he said, shops and the main bazaar were open.

Although there have been earlier reports of fighting-age men being prevented from leaving Afghanistan, new arrivals, most of them young men, said they were able to flee without anyone interfering. Hayatullah, a shopkeeper who like many Afghans uses one name, had a theory about that.

"The Taliban are too busy to bother with what the people are doing," he said.