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| Hundreds Die in Taliban Prison Riot |
| By Associated Press |
| Published: 11/27/2001 |
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Hundreds of Osama bin Laden's foreign legion were killed after staging an uprising with smuggled arms in a northern alliance prison Sunday, officials said. U.S. air strikes helped quash the day-long insurrection. A U.S. special forces soldier inside the fortress was taped by a German television crew saying an American may have been killed, but the Pentagon said later that all U.S. forces in Afghanistan had been accounted for and that none had died. The U.S. Central Command, which oversees the war in Afghanistan, declined to say whether U.S. forces were inside the Qalai Janghi fortress when the fighting began. The fighters, about 300 Chechens, Pakistanis and Arabs who surrendered Saturday from the besieged city of Kunduz, had smuggled weapons under their tunics into the fortress and tried to fight their way out, Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. Dan Stoneking said. The alliance said most of the prisoners were killed. The uprising began about 11 a.m., witnesses said. Alliance spokesman Zaher Wahadat said the prisoners seized other weapons from their guards and captured an ammunition depot, using its contents to fight the troops sent in to put down the revolt. Yahsaw, a spokesman for northern alliance commander Mohammed Mohaqik, said the prisoners broke down the doors and tried to escape. The soldiers appeared to have planned the battle, Central Command spokesman Lt. Cmdr. Dave Culler said, describing it as an apparent 'suicide mission.' For several hours the firefight continued between the hundreds of prisoners and what ARD said were only 100 guards. 'There was general pandemonium,'' said Simon Brooks, head of Red Cross operations for northern Afghanistan, who was at the prison to check on the detainees' condition and escaped by climbing onto the roof with northern alliance commanders. Gen. Rashid Dostum, who controls the compound but was overseeing the surrender at Kunduz when the uprising began, returned several hours later with tanks and machine guns. Stoneking said 500 troops accompanied him. The airstrikes began about the same time, witnesses said. American warplanes streaked overhead, dropping bombs onto the southern part of the compound, where the prisoners were. Some fighters limped away from the compound. Brooks said he met up with three seriously wounded fighters making their way toward Mazar-e-Sharif after the airstrikes began and sent them to a hospital. It wasn't clear whether they were escaped prisoners or alliance fighters. By 6 p.m., Wahadat said, the compound was under control and most of the prisoners were dead. |
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