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Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday said the U.S. is “not aware” of a “hostage-like situation” at Mazari-i-Sharif in Afghanistan after reports that the Taliban were not allowing Americans to leave. “We are not aware of anyone being held on an aircraft or any hostage life situation in Mazar-i-Sharif,” Blinken said during a joint news conference with Qatar’s top diplomats and defense officials in Doha. Blinken did, however, reveal that the U.S. has identified a “relatively small number” of Americans who are trying to depart from the airport. He also said the administration has been “assured” by the Taliban...

An organizer for chartered flights to evacuate Americans and Afghan allies from the Mazar-i-Sharif airport​ accused the State Department of holding up the planes — saying “blood will be on the White House’s hands” if any of the people waiting are injured or killed by the Taliban. ​ Another organizer told Reuters that about 1,000 people, including Americans, are being held in Afghanistan awaiting the State Department to provide clearance for their flights. An individual involved in chartering private planes to ferry people out of Afghanistan put the onus solely on the State Department for holding up the flights.​ “This...

Ten United Nations staff were murdered - two by beheading - after extremists stormed their compound in northern Afghanistan today. Protesters broke into UN offices in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif after a demonstration against Koran burnings in the America turned violent. A small breakaway group attacked the UN compound, throwing stones and climbing on blast barriers to try to gain entry. They seized weapons from guards and opened fire before storming the site. An Afghan police source, who asked not to be named, said the chief of the mission in the city was wounded but survived. Among those murdered...

<p>It should be obvious, now, that the young man was a dreamer, a kid with a hole in his heart, searching, a boy trying on various costumes, poses and attitudes.</p> <p>He was looking for that place--perhaps you looked for it too, once--where he could exchange himself, and give himself up to a challenge demanding sterner stuff.</p> <p>It was about great absolutes, apparently, like it is with many intelligent kids, undisciplined, self-centered characters in their own movies, uncertain about what they might become in the future.</p> <p>Some seek to confront that ambiguity with order, finding it in the U.S. military.</p>

A 20-year-old American who fought with the Taliban and survived a bloody prison uprising near Mazar-i-Sharif last week has been taken into custody by U.S. special forces troops, Newsweek magazine said on its Web site on Sunday. A spokesman for U.S. Central Command, which is running the military campaign on Afghanistan , confirmed that a man claiming to be an American was in the control of U.S. military forces. ``Military forces in Afghanistan do have in their control a man who calls himself a U.S. citizen,'' Marine Maj. Brad Lowell, a Central Command spokesman, said. ``He was among the al ...

Frank Lindh, the gay father of John Walker Lindh, dubbed the "American Taliban" after being found in Afghanistan in late 2001, lashed out at the mainstream media and politicians on both sides of the aisle in Washington during a fiery, and at times, emotional speech before the Commonwealth Club last week. Breaking a self-imposed silence about his son's case, Lindh gave the speech in order to reach out to the American public, which he said has been brainwashed by lawmakers, government officials, and sensational news coverage into thinking his son is a traitor to his country and an ally of...

WASHINGTON, Nov 01, 2001 (United Press International via COMTEX) -- Already divided between north and south, war-ravaged Afghanistan appears to be moving toward a more permanent partition.The process of partition began long before the extremist Taliban militia was formed in 1994. According to some analysts it started with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.Created as a buffer zone between British India and the former Russian empire, Afghanistan survived the departure of the British from the subcontinent in 1947 because the fear of Soviet communism kept its various factions together.The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 and its disgraceful ...

In the line of duty, a hero emerges Ambush at Afghan fortress leads Brookfield man into action and, Friday, to a distinguished honor Tampa, Fla. - Maj. Mark Mitchell had come a long way from the young boy who grew up in the shadow of Milwaukee's County Stadium, watching the Brewers, rising at 4:30 a.m. to deliver the Sentinel, dreaming that one day he'd be a soldier. Now he was. And not just any soldier. A Special Forces officer, schooled in Arabic and trained to make decisions in tense, fast-changing situations when lives are on the line. On the morning...

Paula Zahn introduced a story this morning about atrocities by the Northern Alliance in Mazar-E Sharif. When the reporter in the city explained the " atrocity", it turned out that it was a fire fight between the Talban and the Northern Alliance. During the fight the Taliban were asked to surrender several times. They refused. They died. End of story. The real atrocity is that CNN is still on the air.

KANDAHAR, Nov 15 (PNS): Taliban have launched an offensive on Mazar-i-Sharif as reports pouring in indicate clashes between Taliban and Northern Alliance soldiers in the suburbs of the strategic city which fell to the opposition forces just a few days ago. The disclosure was made by a correspondent of Al-Jazeera TV, Al-Shawli talking to journalists here Wednesday after arriving from Kandahar. He told that Taliban are giving tough time to the Northern Alliance troops and seems to be in no mood to give up. He however expressed concerns over deteriorating conditions in the city as hospitals are running out ...

600 bodies found in Mazar-i-Sharif (Filed: 22/11/2001) RED Cross workers found up to 600 bodies in Mazar-i-Sharif after it was abandoned by the Taliban, but cannot say how they died. Olivier Durr, head of operations for central and south Asia for the International Committee of the Red Cross, today said 400 to 600 bodies were found in the city after the Taliban left on November 9. "But we cannot say these people had been brutally executed or were the result of fighting. Even before our expatriate staff entered (the city) our Afghan colleagues started to collect and bury quite a ...

GENEVA (Reuters) - The International Committee of the Red Cross said on Thursday that between 400 and 600 bodies had been found in the northern Afghan town of Mazar-i-Sharif after its capture by the Northern Alliance. Spokeswoman Macarena Aguilar could not say whether the dead had been executed or killed in fighting that preceded the fall of the town on November 9. "I know 400 to 600 bodies have been found and that we have so far buried 300," Aguilar told Reuters. "I cannot say how they died," she added. She could not say from what ethnic group the dead ...

TERMEZ, Uzbekistan, Nov 23, 2001 (AP WorldStream via COMTEX) -- A U.N. official said Friday that the United Nations hopes to soon restore regular operations in the key northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif.Antonio Donini, deputy U.N. coordinator for Afghanistan, said he had met Thursday with Gen. Rashid Dostum - one of the warlords who took back the city Nov. 9 - and received assurances international staff could operate safely there."We were assured that we could resume activities as normal," Donini said in the Uzbek port city of Termez, adding that staff could return permanently to Mazar-e-Sharif within a week. "The ...

LONDON, Nov 24, 2001 (AP WorldStream via COMTEX) -- A Taliban fighter in Mazar-e-Sharif blew himself up with a hand grenade on Saturday, killing two other fighters and seriously injuring a northern alliance commander, said a British TV reporter who was slightly injured. ITN reporter Andrea Catherwood, who was hit in the knee with shrapnel in the northern Afghanistan town, told ITV News that about 500 foreign Taliban fighters, mostly from Pakistan, had driven overnight across the desert from Kunduz. "They were met by Uzbek warlord General Dostum in the desert. They were disarmed, or so we thought. A ...

MSNBC just reported that we have had the first American Special Ops casualty in the revolt by the Taleban prisoners that were taken from Kunduz to Mazar-i Sharif.

MSNBC is reporting that the Pentagon is denying the reported death of a Special Forces soldier in the Taliban POW uprising in Mazur-I-Sharif today. Developing...

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Nov 26, 2001 (AP WorldStream via COMTEX) -- Pakistani clerics Monday deplored the deaths of hundreds of foreign prisoners in northern Afghan city of Mazar-e-Sharif and announced a nationwide day of mourning against what they called the barbaric act of the U.S. and anti-Taliban forces. "It makes no sense that people who have surrendered will revolt against their captors," Munawaar Hasan, general secretary of the Islamic fundamentalist Jamaat-e-Islami told The Associated Press. "It is a lame excuse to justify the massacre of unarmed men. We will observe a black day on Friday to mourn the deaths of ...

MAZAR-E-SHARIF, Afghanistan, Nov 27, 2001 (AP WorldStream via COMTEX) -- U.S. special forces aided northern alliance fighters battling captured loyalists of Osama bin Laden for a third day Tuesday in a sprawling mud-walled fortress in northern Afghanistan.U.S. airplanes circled above the Qalai Janghi fortress, where Taliban prisoners captured by the alliance in the siege of Kunduz last weekend rained rocket-propelled grenades and mortars on alliance troops trying to suppress the uprising. Witnesses reported heavy airstrikes on the fortress overnight.Five U.S. soldiers were seriously wounded when a U.S. JDAM smart bomb called in by special forces went astray, exploding near ...

DUSHANBE, Nov 27, 2001 (Itar-Tass via COMTEX) -- About 200 Taliban militants and foreign mercenaries are still blocked in the Kalaye-Djangi fortress near Mazar-i-Sharif, Shamsulhak Oriefar, secretary of the Afghan embassy in Dushanbe, said Tuesday. The men organized a revolt several days ago. Oriefar said forces of the United Anti-Taliban Front had blocked all approaches to the fortress. They did not take any actions to prevent more bloodshed and the unnecessary victims. The Talibs and the mercenaries have been offered to surrender, but they prefer committing suicides rather than becoming prisoners of war. In a comment on the mass ...

ISLAMABAD, November 27 (PNS): Deploring the massacre of prisoners of war in Mazar-e-Sharif, President General Pervez Musharraf has urged the world community to persuade Northern Alliance to abide by UN charter on POWs. This he said during his meeting with Japanese Foreign Minister Makiko Tanaka here Monday at Chief Executive Office. The visiting Foreign Minister called on him along with the members of her delegation. She also delivered a special message from Japan Prime Minister to President Musharraf in which he has expressed best wishes for the people and government of Pakistan assuring that Japan will extend full cooperation and ...