- Michael asked one Taleban why he had come to
Afghanistan.
He said: "We are here to kill you" and jumped at Michael, who
shot him and three others before being wrestled to the
ground.
-
-
- Whether it was incompetence, overconfidence or duty that
prompted two CIA operatives to interrogate dozens of Taleban on their own
will perhaps remain a mystery.
-
- But their decision triggered a revolt that became the
single bloodiest engagement since the Afghan war began.
-
- The siege of Kala-i Janghi, the ancient mudbrick fortress
near Mazar-i Sharif, ended yesterday when the last foreign Taleban of
Konduz
were wiped out.
-
- It began on Sunday morning, when the estimated 800
foreign
fighters - Arabs, Pakistanis, Chechens and terrorists of the al-Qaeda
network
- imprisoned in the old fort suddenly turned on their outnumbered Northern
Alliance captors.
-
- A witness said: "The fighting started when the
Taleban
were being questioned by two men from the CIA. They wanted to know where
they had come from and whether they might be al-Qaeda."
-
- Both CIA operatives were dressed in Afghan robes, had
grey beards and spoke Persian. One of them was known as Michael, the other
as David.
-
- Michael asked one Taleb why he had come to Afghanistan.
He replied: "We're here to kill you", and jumped at Michael,
who killed him and three others with his pistol before being wrestled to
the ground.
-
- The witness said: "The Taleban beat, kicked and
bit him to death."
-
- David also killed at least one Taleb, but was then forced
to flee. He said later: "There was no way of stopping them. They ran
straight into gunfire."
-
- David sprinted out of the building where the prisoners
were being interrogated and across a courtyard into the main building to
call for help. He told his commander over a satellite phone: "I think
Michael is dead."
-
- Now, after three days of US airstrikes, desperate
resistance
and continuous assault, the death-toll includes scores of Northern Alliance
fighters and every one of the resisting prisoners.
-
- In the swiftly minted military euphemism, this was an
"uprising", but it was also an act of mass suicide and, in the
end, a slaughter: by Afghans, of "foreigners", directed by
Britons
and Americans.
-
- Yesterday the twisted bodies of the dead were littered
around the gardens of Kala-i Janghi on the outskirts of Mazar-i Sharif,
but just a week ago the Uzbek Northern Alliance leader General Abdul Rashid
Dostum, the king of this castle, drank green tea under the trees with
Mullah
Faizal, the Taleban commander in Konduz. The two warlords discussed what
to do about the Taleban's fanatical "foreign legion", trapped
in Konduz.
-
- It was agreed that the mullah and his Afghan Taleban
fighters would be given safe passage after surrender, but the foreign
fighters
would be handed over to General Dostum. It is not clear whether Mullah
Faizal had any idea what the notorious general intended to do with the
Taleban's foreign fanatics, or much cared. General Dostum, who uses the
castle as a military base and to stable his horses, had decided to use
it as a prison camp to clear a logjam of Taleban prisoners on the road
between Konduz and Mazar-i Sharif.
-
- On Saturday the foreigners duly surrendered in Konduz,
laid down their weapons (at least in theory) and were taken into custody
by General Dostum's forces and driven to the fort outside Mazar-i Sharif.
Some of the surrendering Taleban apparently agreed to travel to Mazar
without
resistance under the impression that they were about to attack it.
-
- On arrival at the dusty fortress, at least two of the
vehicles containing the Taleban were not searched, the first of a litany
of bizarre mistakes by their jailers.
-
- Some of the Taleban still carried weapons beneath their
clothes as they were herded into the basement. Others were said to have
been astonished and enraged to find themselves suddenly incarcerated. It
was rumoured that the most extreme elements had wanted to be jailed in
the fort, intending to try to seize it from within, and stage a last,
suicidal
stand.
-
- General Dostum had allegedly given assurances that the
prisoners would be not be mistreated, but there is no evidence that the
captured Taleban expected to be treated in accordance with the Geneva
Convention,
or had a clue any such thing existed. Warfare in Afghanistan has its own,
bloodier conventions.
-
- On Saturday night, a Chechen prisoner approached a group
of his Northern Alliance jailers, and detonated a hand grenade, killing
himself, several other prisoners, and two Alliance commanders.
-
- But the main explosion did not take place until the CIA
intervention on Sunday morning. Rebellion may also have been sparked by
efforts to tie up the Taleban prisoners, many of whom apparently believed
they were about to be killed. About 250 had been bound, according to one
report, before the rest rebelled.
-
- After killing Michael - whose body is still inside the
camp, despite efforts by US special forces to retrieve it - the Taleban
prisoners then overwhelmed the 20 Northern Alliance guards, killing them
too; the skull of one was crushed with a rock.
-
- The time was 11.20am. David telephoned the US Embassy
in Uzbekistan on his satellite telephone: "We have lost control of
the situation. Send in helicopters and troops." The CIA agent had
time to warn two Red Cross workers, who scrambled down the walls, as their
vehicles inside were set alight by the rampaging prisoners.
-
- The Taleban, armed with the guards' weapons, then stormed
the armoury. David estimated that the Taleban captured an initial batch
of about 30 guns and then found two anti-tank weapons and two grenade
launchers.
-
- Within three hours of the "uprising", US and
British special forces arrived in Land Rovers, some in uniform and some
in civilian clothes, and the battle to retake Kala-i Janghi began in
earnest.
Witnesses said it was quickly apparent that trained soldiers were taking
part in the assault, as the ragged bursts of Alliance machine-gun fire
were replaced by the steady single-shooting of marksmen.
-
- The fight for control quickly enveloped most of the
19th-century
castle. The Taleban were able to capture the south side, helped by the
fact that only about 100 deeply nervous Northern Alliance soldiers were
guarding the Taleban.
-
- The witness said: "David asked his superiors for
choppers to be brought in, as well as ground troops to get everyone out.
They sent about 40 American soldiers, but the choppers were too far away
in Uzbekistan. David's people offered to bring in gunships and bomb the
Taleban. They would flatten the whole castle and kill us all. David told
them twice they shouldn't do that. They were really pressing for airstrikes
and after three hours they started. I have to say they were precise. They
hit the target, or at least they didn't hit us."
-
- The witness said: "David kept saying we have to
get out of here before it gets dark or we will all die. We couldn't look
over the wall where the Taleban were. It was too dangerous to look. It
was a very uncomfortable run, but we made it."
-
- The Northern Alliance gave no quarter. A few of the
fainter-hearted
Taleban managed to get out, and were swiftly put to death, according to
witnesses. A pair of Taleban corpses could be seen propped in a gateway,
each killed by a single bullet to the head.
-
- That night an Alliance spokesman claimed that the
fortress
was under its control; nothing could have been further from the
truth.
-
- On Monday, the US intensified its bombardment and the
Northern Alliance did not hide its intentions. "Those who are left
over will be dead," Alim Razim, General Dostum's adviser, said.
-
- But so far from the high-tech precision battle by highly
trained special forces, the battle for the fort at times resembled
something
far more ancient, confused and inefficient. One "smart bomb"
went astray, seriously wounding five US soldiers and killing and wounding
a number of Northern Allaince troops.
-
- The insurgents were thought to be led by Tahir Uldosh,
a commander of the Uzbek revolutionary Islamic movement. But, in reality,
no leader was necessary because the aims and orders of the Taleban
resisters
could hardly have been simpler: kill until you are killed.
-
- By nightfall on Monday the Taleban, their numbers
whittled
down to perhaps 100 men, were still holding out. That night the smell of
roasting meat wafted across the compound. The Taleban had killed a horse,
for what would be, for all of them, a last meal.
-
- Early yesterday, lorries carrying 200 Northern Alliance
fighters and an anti-aircraft gun arrived at the fortress, as
desert-camouflage-clad
special forces troops moved in and United States warplanes circled
above.
-
- After a night of continuous bombardment by US gunships,
the number of surviving Taleban was still further reduced, and by
mid-morning
the Northern Alliance had pushed the Taleban back into a large compound
inside the PoW camp. One US special forces soldier called the bombing
"fireworks
you'll never forget". AC130 Spectre attack helicopters flew overhead
five times, hovering and firing at close range.
-
- The night-time raids left many bodies half-buried in
the ground. Limbs and torsos rose out of the disturbed ground like tree
trunks after a forest fire. The compound where the Taleban made their last
stand was divided into two halves by a group of low buildings.
-
- A tank attacked the western half of the compound, an
exercise ground that now saw more vicious fighting than any young recruit
could ever have imagined. By noon, the ground was littered with countless
mangled bodies.
-
- Next, the Northern Alliance moved into the compound's
eastern half, which was covered with trees, occasionally used by suicidal
Taleban snipers. Surprisingly slowly for such an overwhelming force, the
Alliance soldiers combed the greenery pockmarked with bodies.
-
- They took no chances, or prisoners. One soldier fired
a rocket-propelled grenade at a dead Taleban at close range.
-
- One Taleban fighter, most likely Chechen, was still
breathing
as he lay in a ditch, his chest rising and falling. Junior Northern
Alliance
soldiers threw stones at his head.
-
- When they saw dead Taleban, the Alliance soldiers would
stop to take their shoes. Many Afghans have reported that the foreign
Taleban
fighters usually had the best equipment, apparently paid for by Osama bin
Laden.
-
- The soldiers would sit on the ground in the middle of
a gunbattle casually unlacing a pair of boots or olive green trainers.
When a commander saw them, he lashed them with a horse whip.
-
- As soon as the Alliance soldiers had taken another
Taleban
position, they would use the newly captured weapons to pursue the next
pocket. Piles of mortars, fuses and artillery pieces lay scattered among
the bodies.
-
- Alim Razim, General Dostum's adviser, finally declared:
"The situation is completely under control. All of them were
killed."
-
- To clear the last pockets of Taleban resistance in the
afternoon, Alliance soldiers approached the houses in the middle of the
compound and fired at random into basement windows. Some 20-litre petrol
cannisters were thrown in, then grenades.
-
- As night fell once more, after three days of fighting,
sporadic gunfire could still be heard; but these were celebrating Alliance
troops, it seemed, for the guns on the other side had at last been
silenced,
and the Taleban killed to a man.
-
-
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