----------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (A.Wosni)
> US and British soldiers participate in massacre against prisoners
> By Michael Pr�bsting (www.workerspower.com), 26.11.2001, 2.36 a.m.
> The Northern Alliance forces with the aid of US gunships and probably Special
> Forces have carried out a brutal massacre against Taliban prisoners on
> Sunday 25th November. While the exact figures are still not clear reports
> speak about 500-1000 prisoners who have been murdered in the 19th century
> fort Qala-i-Jhangi at Mazar-i-Sharif.
>
> Not surprisingly Northern Alliance General Dostum representatives whose
> soldiers carried out the mass execution and Pentagon spokesman, Army Lt.
> Col. Dan Stoneking claim they had to put down a riot of the prisoners and
> deny any wrongdoing.
>
> However here are the facts. Before the supposed riot started the US newspaper
> Los Angeles Times published a report including the following paragraphs.
>
> "On the western side of the Kunduz pocket, as many as 1,000 Taliban fighters
> turned in their weapons, Mukhaqiq said, and were being held in the village
> of Qala-i-Jangy, which has a large prison. He said he did not know how long
> they would be held there or what their fate might be.
>
> Some observers fear hatred of the foreign Taliban runs so high among the
> Northern Alliance that Taliban prisoners may face mistreatment or even
> summary execution, both of which are prohibited under the Geneva
> Conventions." ("Taliban Streams Out of Kunduz" Los Angeles Times November 25
> 2001)
>
> Notice that this journalist already noticed the desire of Northers Alliance
> fighters to kill the foreign Taliban!
>
> According to the Western News agency AP "Stoneking said the fighting involved
> about 300 "hard-core Taliban" prisoners, most of them from Pakistan and
> Chechnya. He said some of the fighters had smuggled weapons into the prison
> compound and began fighting northern alliance forces."
>
> TIME magazine correspondent Alex Perry who was an eyewitness spoke about 800
> Taliban prisoners involved in the riot.
>
> And a Reuters report on the same day quotes a witness saying "About 500
> prisoners linked to the al Qaeda network grabbed Kalashnikov rifles,
> machineguns and grenades and battled their Northern Alliance guards in the
> fort."
>
> According to Reuter than "Northern Alliance commander Gen. Abdul Rashid
> Dostum mustered about 500 of his troops to counterattack the foreign
> fighters" and in the words of Pentagon spokesman, Army Lt. Col. Dan
> Stoneking US forces "provided support via airstrikes".
>
> Reuters quotes another Pentagon "official, who declined to be identified,
> said the non-Afghan Taliban fighters had held the southern part of the
> complex before the AC-130 gunships and the Black Hawk helicopters helped the
> Northern Alliance restore control."
>
> Time Magazine correspondent Alex Perry reported from the scene outside
> Mazar-i-Sharif that at least one American, who belonged to U.S. special
> operations forces, was missing and presumed dead after prisoners began
> firing smuggled weapons. If confirmed, it would be the first known U.S.
> combat death in Afghanistan.
>
> Finally Reuters reported "A U.S. observer in the area said some 40 U.S.
> special forces troops had reached the fort but could not get inside because
> of the heavy fighting."
>
> Now there are several suspicious indices and different accounts which point
> to a brutal massacre or mass execution carried out by Dostum notorious
> butchers and US and British soldiers.
>
> First it is a well established fact that the prisoners surrendered on the
> same day. Given that they were so called "hard-core Taliban" Dostums
> soldiers and US special forces - who according to several reports in the
> past accompanied Dostums since the beginning of the war - would certainly
> have checked them for weapons before putting them into prison. New agencies
> repeatedly quotes Northern Alliance leaders saying that the foreign Taliban
> would fight to their death. It is therefore nearly excluded that the Kunduz
> defenders could have smuggled a significant amount of weapons into prison -
> at maximum very few small weapons.
>
> The second claim of the Northern Alliance and Pentagon spokesman is also
> dubious. They say that the prisoners took weapons from guards. Again this is
> possible but only in very small numbers. Can anyone imagine that let us say
> 100 soldiers guarding prisoners can be overwhelmed at once?! If the first
> few guards have been token by surprise the rest of them would have been
> alerted.
>
> Finally while the Pentagon admits that its deadly "AC-130 gunships and the
> Black Hawk helicopters helped the Northern Alliance restore control" they
> deny that the 40 U.S. special forces troops present "having reached the fort
> but could not get inside because of the heavy fighting." Since they went to
> the fort exactly because of the supposed heavy fighting it is strange that
> they did not enter the place "because of the heavy fighting". That's their
> job - isn't it?
>
> Now fortunately there was a Western eye witness Time Magazine correspondent
> Alex Perry. He reported that "American and British forces have now joined in
> trying to quell the attack. (.) There's a hand-full of them. I would say
> 12." According to Perry these Western soldiers were not simply observers
> "but the Americans are running the show. (.) Well the Americans and the
> British are coordinating airstrikes from their positions inside the fort on
> another part of the fort. And they're also directing the commanders inside
> when to tell their men to attack."
>
> Perry had no illusions about the task of the Western and Afghan forces: "The
> mission by the Americans and Northern alliance is to kill every single one
> of them now."
>
> While it might be possible that the prisoners attempted to escape and even
> that they possessed a few weapons it is most likely that they were not in
> any way a match for the well armed Dostum soldiers and US Special forces and
> gunships. They had no chance. They certainly were promised at the
> negotiations in Kunduz that they would be treated fairly. What happened
> instead was a cold blood massacre aided by US troops.
>
> Bush, Rumsfeld and all the other leaders of the world super power made it
> clear before that they prefer to see Osama bin Laden and the al-Qaida and
> Taliban fighter rather dead than alive. They kept their promise.
>
>
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