March 21, 2004
Dramatic corroboration of the massacre of Afghan prisoners by the US-backed Northern Alliance at the start of the war in 2001 was last night provided by American pathologists commissioned to investigate the claims by the UN.
A vivid account of the slaughter was provided to The Observer last week by three Britons who were released from the US detention camp at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba more than two years after they were first seized in Afghanistan. They told how they narrowly escaped the massacre before being handed over to American forces and flown to Guantanamo Bay.
Forensic anthropologist William Haglund, who earlier led inquiries into mass graves in Bosnia, Rwanda, Sri Lanka and Sierra Leone, told The Observer how he dug into an area of recently disturbed desert soil outside the town of Shebargan, and exhumed 15 bodies, a tiny sample, he said, of what may be a very large total.
Thanks to the cold and arid climate, they were well enough preserved to carry out autopsies. Haglund's conclusion 'that they died from suffocation' exactly corroborates the stories told by the Guantanamo detainees in last week's Observer .
'They are the first survivors to describe what we already believed happened to the victims we discovered,' Haglund said yesterday. 'The time has come for a full investigation, under the protection of the international community.'
Asif Iqbal, Shafiq Rasul and Ruhal Ahmed, from Tipton in the West Midlands, told in their interviews how weeks before they were handed over to the Americans, they were captured by Northern Alliance forces led by General Abdurrashid Dostum in November 2001, as they tried to flee war-torn Afghanistan.
At Shebargan, they were herded into two of several truck containers. Then, Iqbal said, the doors were sealed. He and the others lost consciousness, and when he came to he was 'lying on top of dead bodies, breathing the stench of their blood and urine'.
'We lived because someone made holes with a machine gun, though they were shooting low, and still more died from the bullets. When we got out, about 20 in each container were still alive.'
...Iqbal and Rasul told how they had been marched through the desert towards Shebargan past huge ditches already filled with bodies. Heffernan said: 'After taking into account the thousands crowded into the dilapidated prison, the whereabouts of many taken captive remained unknown. We began to suspect some might have met their fate on the way there. After we left the prison and travelled down the road a few miles into the desert, we smelled the unmistakable odour of decaying flesh and soon found bulldozer tracks and skeletal remains.' Haglund came back under United Nations auspices a few months later.
...The details about elements of the Tipton Three's story assumed a new importance last week, after the Sun published claims by a US Embassy spokesman, Lee McClenny, that the three had trained at an al-Qaeda camp in 2000. They told The Observer last week that they had all confessed to this accusation only after months of solitary confinement and 200 separate interrogation sessions, only to have it finally disproved by MI5, which brought documents showing they had been in Britain at the time.
After making his claims in the Sun, McClenny refused to answer further questions from journalists, while Lt Col Leon Sumpter, the US spokesman at Guantanamo Bay, said any allegations concerning detainees were highly classified, even after their release: 'I don't know how the Embassy got this,' he said.
Observer article
Dramatic corroboration of the massacre of Afghan prisoners by the US-backed Northern Alliance at the start of the war in 2001 was last night provided by American pathologists commissioned to investigate the claims by the UN.
A vivid account of the slaughter was provided to The Observer last week by three Britons who were released from the US detention camp at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba more than two years after they were first seized in Afghanistan. They told how they narrowly escaped the massacre before being handed over to American forces and flown to Guantanamo Bay.
Forensic anthropologist William Haglund, who earlier led inquiries into mass graves in Bosnia, Rwanda, Sri Lanka and Sierra Leone, told The Observer how he dug into an area of recently disturbed desert soil outside the town of Shebargan, and exhumed 15 bodies, a tiny sample, he said, of what may be a very large total.
Thanks to the cold and arid climate, they were well enough preserved to carry out autopsies. Haglund's conclusion 'that they died from suffocation' exactly corroborates the stories told by the Guantanamo detainees in last week's Observer .
'They are the first survivors to describe what we already believed happened to the victims we discovered,' Haglund said yesterday. 'The time has come for a full investigation, under the protection of the international community.'
Asif Iqbal, Shafiq Rasul and Ruhal Ahmed, from Tipton in the West Midlands, told in their interviews how weeks before they were handed over to the Americans, they were captured by Northern Alliance forces led by General Abdurrashid Dostum in November 2001, as they tried to flee war-torn Afghanistan.
At Shebargan, they were herded into two of several truck containers. Then, Iqbal said, the doors were sealed. He and the others lost consciousness, and when he came to he was 'lying on top of dead bodies, breathing the stench of their blood and urine'.
'We lived because someone made holes with a machine gun, though they were shooting low, and still more died from the bullets. When we got out, about 20 in each container were still alive.'
...Iqbal and Rasul told how they had been marched through the desert towards Shebargan past huge ditches already filled with bodies. Heffernan said: 'After taking into account the thousands crowded into the dilapidated prison, the whereabouts of many taken captive remained unknown. We began to suspect some might have met their fate on the way there. After we left the prison and travelled down the road a few miles into the desert, we smelled the unmistakable odour of decaying flesh and soon found bulldozer tracks and skeletal remains.' Haglund came back under United Nations auspices a few months later.
...The details about elements of the Tipton Three's story assumed a new importance last week, after the Sun published claims by a US Embassy spokesman, Lee McClenny, that the three had trained at an al-Qaeda camp in 2000. They told The Observer last week that they had all confessed to this accusation only after months of solitary confinement and 200 separate interrogation sessions, only to have it finally disproved by MI5, which brought documents showing they had been in Britain at the time.
After making his claims in the Sun, McClenny refused to answer further questions from journalists, while Lt Col Leon Sumpter, the US spokesman at Guantanamo Bay, said any allegations concerning detainees were highly classified, even after their release: 'I don't know how the Embassy got this,' he said.
November 21, 2001
As Afghan Northern Alliance forces allied with the US converged on the city of Kunduz, Afghan commanders announced on November 19 that they were considering issuing safety guarantees to foreign Taliban fighters who would surrender to them. US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld immediately stated that he did not want such an agreement to be negotiated. In the week before the surrender of Kunduz, Rumsfeld made it clear that he preferred an outcome where all the Taliban soldiers were slaughtered, saying that the US was “not inclined to negotiate surrenders,” although he hoped that Al Qaeda forces would “either be killed or taken prisoner.”
Upon their surrender in Kunduz, the non-Afghan Taliban were taken to the Qala-i-Janghi fortress in Mazar-i-Sharif under the guard of Uzbek warlord Rashid Dostum’s forces. There they revolted against US interrogators who taunted them, beat them, and threatened them with death. In response, US Special Forces on the ground called in and coordinated air strikes and tank assaults against the prisoners, killing some 800. Captured on camera by US and German film crews, this atrocity was eventually the subject of an August 2002 CNN documentary. (See http://www.wsws.org/articles/2001/nov2001/afgh-n27 .shtml and http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0208/03/cp.00.html)
... After the bombing ended, US Special Forces and Dostum’s troops herded 3,000 surviving prisoners into sealed metal containers and drove them for 20 hours to Sheberghan prison. Most of the prisoners suffocated along the way. When the convoy arrived at its destination, the containers were emptied and the prisoners who had survived the journey were shot. Their remains were buried in a mass grave. This atrocity was exposed by Irish filmmaker Jamie Doran in his movie, Afghan Massacre—Convoy of Death (See http://www.acftv.net).
One survivor of this mass killing was the “American Taliban” John Walker Lindh, whom US forces separated from the other prisoners after the bombing of the Qala-i-Janghi fortress. Lindh was tortured by US forces—a bullet wound was deliberately left untreated, and he was placed naked in a noisy, freezing metal container for days.
Axis of Logic article
As Afghan Northern Alliance forces allied with the US converged on the city of Kunduz, Afghan commanders announced on November 19 that they were considering issuing safety guarantees to foreign Taliban fighters who would surrender to them. US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld immediately stated that he did not want such an agreement to be negotiated. In the week before the surrender of Kunduz, Rumsfeld made it clear that he preferred an outcome where all the Taliban soldiers were slaughtered, saying that the US was “not inclined to negotiate surrenders,” although he hoped that Al Qaeda forces would “either be killed or taken prisoner.”
Upon their surrender in Kunduz, the non-Afghan Taliban were taken to the Qala-i-Janghi fortress in Mazar-i-Sharif under the guard of Uzbek warlord Rashid Dostum’s forces. There they revolted against US interrogators who taunted them, beat them, and threatened them with death. In response, US Special Forces on the ground called in and coordinated air strikes and tank assaults against the prisoners, killing some 800. Captured on camera by US and German film crews, this atrocity was eventually the subject of an August 2002 CNN documentary. (See http://www.wsws.org/articles/2001/nov2001/afgh-n27 .shtml and http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0208/03/cp.00.html)
... After the bombing ended, US Special Forces and Dostum’s troops herded 3,000 surviving prisoners into sealed metal containers and drove them for 20 hours to Sheberghan prison. Most of the prisoners suffocated along the way. When the convoy arrived at its destination, the containers were emptied and the prisoners who had survived the journey were shot. Their remains were buried in a mass grave. This atrocity was exposed by Irish filmmaker Jamie Doran in his movie, Afghan Massacre—Convoy of Death (See http://www.acftv.net).
One survivor of this mass killing was the “American Taliban” John Walker Lindh, whom US forces separated from the other prisoners after the bombing of the Qala-i-Janghi fortress. Lindh was tortured by US forces—a bullet wound was deliberately left untreated, and he was placed naked in a noisy, freezing metal container for days.
The International Committee of the Red Cross reported...that it had found 400 to 600 bodies in Mazar-i-Sharif, apparent victims of summary execution after the Northern Alliance captured the city on November 9.
...The Taliban prisoners unexpectedly surrendered Sunday in the besieged city of Kunduz. They gave themselves up to General Dostum, whose Uzbek-based force was approaching Kunduz from the west, rather than to General Khan Daoud, the head of the largely Tajik force attacking from the east, possibly because Dostum gave them assurances that they would be repatriated to Pakistan.
There were press reports over the weekend that Dostum had made such a deal, and he was denounced by rival Northern Alliance commanders who wanted the so-called “foreign Taliban” to be placed on trial in Islamic courts or killed on the spot. It is quite likely that the appearance of the Americans at Qala-i-Janghi was the first indication to the Taliban prisoners that they had been double-crossed, and they reacted accordingly.
...There is far stronger evidence that the US government ordered the massacre at Mazar-i-Sharif than any proof that has been produced to substantiate the charge that Osama bin Laden ordered the September 11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington. The chronology is as follows:
November 19: Northern Alliance General Khan Daoud suggested that he would be willing to grant foreign Taliban fighters safe passage out of Afghanistan if they would surrender Kunduz, and was negotiating with the Taliban on this proposal.
November 20: US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld vetoed this proposal, declaring, “It would be most unfortunate if the foreigners in Afghanistan—the Al Qaeda and the Chechens and others who have been there working with the Taliban—if those folks were set free and in any way allowed to go to another country and cause the same kind of terrorist acts.” Rumsfeld was repeatedly quoted in subsequent days to the effect that all foreign Taliban should be killed or imprisoned.
...The response by the American government and media to Sunday’s bloodbath in Afghanistan has been brazen lying and defense of mass murder in a manner that recalls the worst crimes of Nazism.
US military spokesman Kenton Keith denied Monday that Alliance troops had carried out a massacre, saying the “status” of the prisoners as POWs covered by the Geneva Convention had changed once they “engaged in offensive action” (i.e., once they resisted their own execution).
While press reports have described the beating to death of Taliban prisoners in Kunduz, in addition to the Qala-i-Janghi slaughter, Keith claimed that Northern Alliance troops “have been behaving with restraint. We do not know of any atrocities as part of any widespread pattern.”
This version of events has gone virtually unchallenged in the American press. At Bush’s latest press conference, on Monday morning, the day after the slaughter, there was not a single question on the prison massacre. At Rumsfeld’s press conference later the same day, the question came up only tangentially, and no reporter pursued the issue.
World Socialist Website article
...The Taliban prisoners unexpectedly surrendered Sunday in the besieged city of Kunduz. They gave themselves up to General Dostum, whose Uzbek-based force was approaching Kunduz from the west, rather than to General Khan Daoud, the head of the largely Tajik force attacking from the east, possibly because Dostum gave them assurances that they would be repatriated to Pakistan.
There were press reports over the weekend that Dostum had made such a deal, and he was denounced by rival Northern Alliance commanders who wanted the so-called “foreign Taliban” to be placed on trial in Islamic courts or killed on the spot. It is quite likely that the appearance of the Americans at Qala-i-Janghi was the first indication to the Taliban prisoners that they had been double-crossed, and they reacted accordingly.
...There is far stronger evidence that the US government ordered the massacre at Mazar-i-Sharif than any proof that has been produced to substantiate the charge that Osama bin Laden ordered the September 11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington. The chronology is as follows:
November 19: Northern Alliance General Khan Daoud suggested that he would be willing to grant foreign Taliban fighters safe passage out of Afghanistan if they would surrender Kunduz, and was negotiating with the Taliban on this proposal.
November 20: US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld vetoed this proposal, declaring, “It would be most unfortunate if the foreigners in Afghanistan—the Al Qaeda and the Chechens and others who have been there working with the Taliban—if those folks were set free and in any way allowed to go to another country and cause the same kind of terrorist acts.” Rumsfeld was repeatedly quoted in subsequent days to the effect that all foreign Taliban should be killed or imprisoned.
...The response by the American government and media to Sunday’s bloodbath in Afghanistan has been brazen lying and defense of mass murder in a manner that recalls the worst crimes of Nazism.
US military spokesman Kenton Keith denied Monday that Alliance troops had carried out a massacre, saying the “status” of the prisoners as POWs covered by the Geneva Convention had changed once they “engaged in offensive action” (i.e., once they resisted their own execution).
While press reports have described the beating to death of Taliban prisoners in Kunduz, in addition to the Qala-i-Janghi slaughter, Keith claimed that Northern Alliance troops “have been behaving with restraint. We do not know of any atrocities as part of any widespread pattern.”
This version of events has gone virtually unchallenged in the American press. At Bush’s latest press conference, on Monday morning, the day after the slaughter, there was not a single question on the prison massacre. At Rumsfeld’s press conference later the same day, the question came up only tangentially, and no reporter pursued the issue.
Democracy Now! online airing of the Irish documentary: Convoy of Death
The film was researched by award-winning journalist Najibullah Quraishi, who was beaten almost to death when he tried to obtain video evidence of US Special Forces’ complicity in the massacre. Two of the witnesses who testified in the film are now dead.
