---------- From: Barry Stoller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: [L-I] Kunduz: 'All of them were killed' AP. 27 November 2001. Northern Alliance Fighters Claim to Put Down Uprising by Taliban Prisoners. MAZAR-E-SHARIF -- Dozens of shattered bodies lay in the dusty courtyard of a mud-walled Afghan fortress prison Tuesday after a three-day uprising by Taliban prisoners. The northern alliance claimed to have put down the revolt with the help of American airstrikes and special forces, but U.S. military officials said 30 to 40 men still were holding out in the sprawling Qalai Janghi complex. "It is not yet fully under control," Gen. Tommy Franks, who heads the war effort in Afghanistan, told reporters in Florida. [N.B.] Northern alliance troops turned back journalists trying to enter the complex outside the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif on Tuesday night, making it impossible to confirm whether fighting had ended. But representatives of the international Red Cross said late Tuesday that they were working to arrange for burials Wednesday - an indication the battle had abated. "The situation is completely under control. All of them were killed," said Alim Razim, political adviser to Gen. Rashid Dostum, the northern alliance commander responsible for Qalai Janghi. The postscript from three days of fighting was grisly; the remains of soldiers from both sides lay around the prison, where non-Afghans who fought alongside the Taliban had been locked up since Sunday. One television report showed some 60 bodies, believed to be Taliban, scattered across a courtyard. In another spot, a body believed to be that of a Pakistani Talib lay in a ditch, and villagers said he had been strangled with a rope. One man, laughing, picked up the body by its robe and kicked it in the head. Another villager posed over the dead man, holding a knife. Early Tuesday, the aerial bombardment on the fortress sent up showers of sparks visible from Mazar-e-Sharif, nine miles away, and appeared to trigger further explosions of ammunition inside the compound. As dawn broke, a loud explosion rattled windows in the city. Even after the heavy strikes, some prisoners held out throughout much of the day, lobbing mortar shells that landed inside and outside the fortress' turreted walls, kicking up clouds of dust. Clouds of black smoke rose from inside the fortress and tank fire could also be heard mixed in with bursts of machine-gun fire. Razim, the northern alliance official, declined to say how many Taliban captives were in the fortress Tuesday, but said that in all, about 450 had been involved in the uprising. Footage shot by the private Turkish station NTV showed some 60 bodies of Taliban fighters in the courtyard of the fortress, and northern alliance soldiers walking past the corpses. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Barry Stoller http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ProletarianNews _______________________________________________ Leninist-International mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international
