- The Americans and their Afghan allies appear to be trying
to cover up the slaughter of more than 280 foreign Taliban fighters
believed
to be loyal to Osama bin Laden in Kandahar airport.
-
- Mystery has surrounded the fate of the foreign fighters
since the airport was captured last week, after intensive bombing by the
Americans. Afghan anti-Taliban forces acknowledged that more than 280
fighters
had been holding out in the airport, but claimed that only about 20 were
killed. The rest, they claimed, escaped alive.
-
- But one of the Afghan soldiers who took part in the
fighting
said yesterday that he was ordered to return to the airport a day after
it was captured, where he says he helped bury the bodies of about 280
mostly
Arab fighters. The soldier, who used the pseudonym Ahmad Gul to protect
his identity, said the majority were killed by American bombs.
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- Two other witnesses, Abdul Basir and Abdul Kadim, said
they saw two bulldozers dumping earth into what they believe was a mass
grave at the airport.
-
- Two Arab prisoners captured in the fighting - who should
be protected under the Geneva conventions - also seem to have disappeared.
Mr Gul said he handed over two ethnic Arab prisoners-of-war he helped to
capture to some Americans, presumably members of the CIA, who interrogated
them on the spot, then took them away. There has been no word on them
since.
-
- Reporters were allowed into the airport for the first
time yesterday. More than 200 US Marines are setting up a forward base
inside, and dozens of armoured troop carriers were parked around the
complex.
A US Marine captain gave photographers a guided tour.
-
- The airport was devastated in the fighting. Huge craters
lay in the runway, and almost all the windows in the modernist terminal
building had been smashed, broken glass crunched under our feet.
-
- But not included in the guided tour was the grave site,
a short distance away, where Mr Gul said he helped to bury the foreign
fighters. The Americans have sealed off the entire airport site, making
it impossible to reach the alleged grave.
-
- Mr Gul said he was one of a small group of Afghan
soldiers
who were sent back to the airport the day after the end of the fighting
there to help bury the bodies. He said that on the day he arrived, last
Saturday, the soldiers collected about 30 bodies. The next day, he said,
they collected as many as 250.
-
- Mr Gul's version of events would strengthen the argument
of those who say the Americans prefer to kill the foreign fighters rather
than take them alive.
-
- It comes after the massacre at Mazar-i-Sharif, where
American and British forces fighting alongside the Northern Alliance killed
more than 150 foreign Taliban prisoners-of-war, when they quelled a prison
rebellion using air strikes.
-
- In Tora Bora, the Americans continued bombing despite
an offer from al-Qa'ida fighters to surrender to the United Nations or
diplomats from their own countries. The US would only accept an
unconditional
surrender which was not forthcoming.
-
- The clashes with the foreign fighters around Kandahar
started three weeks ago, as Afghan anti-Taliban forces backed by US air
strikes attacked Kandahar province. Anti-Taliban soldiers met the foreign
fighters at the small town of Takht-e Pul as they advanced north towards
Kandahar. The anti-Taliban forces later pushed the foreign Taliban back
to the airport, and a nearby al-Qa'ida training camp.
-
- It was at Takht-e Pul that Mr Gul said he helped capture
two Arab Taliban fighters. "We saw a car coming and stopped it to
search it," he said. "It was full of weapons. The man inside
spoke only Arabic and we didn't understand him. He attacked us and we shot
and killed him. Then we saw another car coming and we took the two men
inside prisoner. We took them to the Americans. They interrogated them
in Arabic, then they took them away. I have not seen them
since."
-
- Several Afghan soldiers in Kandahar agreed that the
Americans
had taken away two Arab Taliban prisoners. But David Romley, a US Marine
captain at the airport yesterday, claimed that American forces in
Afghanistan
were holding only one "battlefield detainee": John Walker, the
American Talib who survived the massacre at Mazar. The two Arabs have
disappeared.
-
- After a while, Mr Gul said, the anti-Taliban forces
pushed
the foreign fighters back to the airport. "We would run towards them
and attack them, they they would counter-attack, running out towards
us,"
said Mr Gul. "The Americans bombed whenever the fighting flared, but
stopped whenever it died down. We offered the Arabs a chance to surrender,
but I don't believe they were ready to. When we caught a few, they started
fighting us. One even pulled out a grenade and killed himself."
-
- In the end, it seems, almost no prisoners were taken.
There are believed to be some foreign Taliban being held in Kandahar
prison.
It is not clear whether they were fighting at the airport.
-
- The day the fighting ended at the airport, Mr Gul and
the other soldiers were ordered to advance into Kandahar city with their
commander, Gul Agha, now the governor. On the way, he said, they were
attacked
by 18 more Taliban fighters who they killed in the road. The international
Red Cross was asked to collect and bury some bodies by the roadside. These
may have been the ones. But it was Mr Gul and his comrades who were sent
back to bury most of the bodies. Mr Gul said: "Most of them had been
killed by the bombing. Some had a leg or an arm blown away. A few had been
killed by gunshots from our men."
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- On Saturday, the first day Mr Gul spent collecting the
bodies, Mr Basir and Mr Kadim their real names passed by on their way
to attend the meeting which appointed Mr Agha governor of Kandahar. They
stopped at the airport, where they said they saw two bulldozers dumping
earth into a large trench that looked like a mass grave. They saw the
bodies
of two dead foreign Taliban lying by the side or the road.
-
- At the airport yesterday, the US Marines were busy
clearing
away the debris, and checking the perimeter for mines, setting up the site
as a forward base for operations which Captain Romley said he did not
"care
to characterise".
-
- Meanwhile, the site where Mr Gul claimed more than 280
massacred Taliban were buried lies out of reach.
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- http://news.independent.co.uk
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