Canberra confirms Taleban recruits

20 Dec, 2001 09:12 AM4 mins to read

By GREG ANSLEY AND AGENCIES

CANBERRA - The existence of two more Australian Taleban fighters was confirmed yesterday as the Government considered whether to join the British-led peacekeeping force in Afghanistan.

The two men, one a former Australian soldier and both in their 20s, have not been captured, nor have they been linked to Adelaide-born Taleban David Hicks, now waiting to be interrogated by Australian counter-terrorism officials on board a United States warship.

But their presence in Afghanistan was seen yesterday by Defence Minister Robert Hill as confirmation that local backing continues to exist for terrorists.

"As stated in the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation's [latest] annual report ... there are people in Australia who support terrorist organisations," he said.

Few details of the two new Australian Taleban have so far been released, but both are described as Caucasians who entered Afghanistan separately and independently, one from Iran in early August and the other at an unknown time and place.

Hicks, who fought for the Kosovo Liberation Army in the former Yugoslavia before converting to Islam, operated first with Kashmir separatists before training with Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda terror group in Afghanistan.

Attorney-General Daryl Williams said yesterday that US authorities had agreed to interrogation by an Australian team, although it remains uncertain if he will be handed back to Australia, and what charges would be brought against him.

At present Hicks and 14 other foreign Taleban fighters, including American John Walker, are being held as battlefield detainees under the Geneva Convention, which allows the US to confine contact to military officials.

Walker said in a CNN interview that he was a member of a group of Arabic-speaking fighters financed by bin Laden fighting around the Afghan city of Kunduz.

Australia, which has 150 SAS troops on the ground in Afghanistan and is debating whether to send more forces as peacekeepers, has made no decision on how it will treat Hicks or the other two men if they are captured.

Hill said yesterday that Australian officials had become aware of reports of the two new Taleban fighters over the past week but that verification had been difficult and no comment beyond basic details would be made.

The concerned parents of one of the men had contacted Foreign Affairs officials about their 25-year-old son, who previously served with the Australian Army but left after suffering from depression.

Inquiries were still continuing into his whereabouts and activities, and Hill said his name would not be made public out of respect for his family - a protection that failed Hicks, whose identity and family were rapidly tracked down by reporters.

The second man, aged 28, left Australia last March and had no record of military service in Australia.

Like Hicks, neither was previously known to security and intelligence authorities.

Meanwhile, a Bush Administration official confirmed an NBC report that federal prosecutors are preparing to recommend that Walker be charged with violating a law against supporting terrorist organisations rather than treason.

NBC News reported the US Justice Department has ruled out charging Walker with treason, which carries a possible death penalty, because of the demanding legal standards set by the Constitution and the difficulty of finding witnesses from the Taleban who would testify against him in court.

In an interview filmed on December 2 and broadcast yesterday on CNN, Walker said "the media twists the Taleban" and that he joined the movement because "Muslims must be concerned with the affairs of Muslims".

Looking dazed and burned as doctors injected him with morphine in a hospital bed, Walker said he and his Taleban comrades were convinced they would be killed by their captors when they surrendered to US-backed Northern Alliance fighters at the town of Mazar-i-Sharif.

He told how the basement where he and other Taleban fighters held out was filled with water and the stench of corpses before the surrender.

"They had bombed us with airplanes, they'd shot missiles, they'd thrown grenades, they'd shot us with all types of guns, they poured gas on us and burned us, they'd done everything you can imagine. So the last thing they did was pour water into the basement. They wanted to fill it up with water."

He said they stood in freezing water in the basement for "maybe 20 hours" before giving up.

"If we surrender the worst that can happen to us is that they'll torture us or kill us, right? So right here they're torturing and killing us so we might as well surrender."

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