Horrors of Mazar-i-Sharif fort uprising exposed to world

29 Nov, 2001 10:25 PM3 mins to read

By JUSTIN HUGGLER

MAZAR-I-SHARIF - The bodies of the dead lay everywhere. Some were laid out on roads to be taken away, others were still lying on the ground where they died, slowly starting to decay in the morning sun.

An Afghan soldier leaned over a body, his hands working intently in the dead man's mouth, clutching a long thin instrument.

He was trying to wrench the fillings out of the corpse's teeth even as the flesh began to rot around them.

The outside world got to see what the war in Afghanistan was really like yesterday. For the first time reporters were allowed into Qala-i-Janghi, the old fort outside Mazar-i-Sharif where hundreds of Taleban prisoners of war had been killed in a pitched battle with American and British special forces and Afghan soldiers under the command of General Abdul Rashid Dostum.

Inside was a scene of devastation. Rubble was piled high where buildings had collapsed. The charred remains of trees had to be cleared away from the entrance before the bodies could be taken away. The Americans had bombed the quarters from the air.

Yesterday the Afghan soldiers were busily stripping the bodies of everything they could find. One soldier stepped over the dead, swinging the boots he had taken from their feet. Another carried four Machineguns he had taken.

Several of the bodies were recognisably Arabs and Pakistani. The foreign Taleban volunteers believed to be loyal to Osama bin Laden but who surrendered were brought to the fort from Mazar-i-Sharif.

The Americans insisted they bombed Qala-i-Janghi only because their own personnel were under threat. They said the Taleban prisoners seized weapons and attacked their Afghan captors along with CIA agents who were interrogating them.

Dostum, striding through the slaughter, insisted his soldiers had treated the prisoners humanely.

As he spoke, a soldier kicked the body of a man who was lying on his side to make sure he was dead. The body rolled over to reveal that the man's arms had been tied together behind his back.

Several of the dead men's arms had been tied together above the elbow, some with their own black turbans.

Dostum publicly denied the practice but an Afghan soldier under his command admitted he and his comrades had been tying the prisoners' hands when the fighting started.

Reporters inside counted 150 bodies. Between 300 and 400 foreign Taleban volunteers were seen surrendering to Dostum's troops. They are all believed to have been brought to Qala-i-Janghi, which means more than 150 bodies are missing. Many of them could have been lying in the rubble in the fortress.

Dostum claimed the revolt had begun after a grenade attack by Taleban prisoners killed two of his best generals.

Yesterday there was no explanation on how the prisoners managed to get hold of the arsenal to enable them to hold out for three days. The secrets of what and who really started the killing may have died with them.

- INDEPENDENT

Story archives: