Posted on 11/26/2001 7:19:18 AM PST by jerod
A CIA operative was killed when hundreds of Taliban prisoners of war staged a breakout yesterday pitting themselves against a handful of American and British special forces as well as Northern Alliance troops.
Time magazine's Alex Perry witnessed what U.S. officials believed was a suicide mission by the Taliban inside a fort in the northern Afghanistan town of Mazar-e Sharif.
Speaking from a satellite phone only 50 metres from the fighting, Mr. Perry told how American troops were calling up U.S. air strikes to quell the uprising in which a CIA colleague died at the hands of the Taliban.
Hundreds of the Taliban were reported to have been killed in the fight.
Mr. Perry told a colleague that the revolt, which lasted several hours, appeared to have been sparked by the imprisoned Taliban seeing the face of a Western journalist.
"It's merely the sight of a Western face. They're here to fight a jihad; they see a Western face; they assume that's who they've come to get," Mr. Perry said as gunfire erupted around him.
He said about 1,000 Taliban from Kunduz had driven to Mazar on Saturday and surrendered to Alliance commander General Rashid Dostum.
They were taken in trucks to Kalai Jangi on the west of Mazar but were not searched properly. It is believed prisoners smuggled weapons into the fort under their tunics.
On Saturday, a prisoner pulled out a grenade and killed himself and two commanders.
Then on Sunday, they revolted.
"There was a guy from London and a woman," Mr. Perry said. "They were interviewing Taliban prisoners when the Taliban suddenly just pounced on them."
"They beat the British guy quite badly, but he was rescued and taken out of the fort. But that's when the Taliban grabbed guns off the Northern Alliance, overpowered them, killed at least 20 and the Northern Alliance lost control of the fort and had to withdraw from the fort," Mr. Perry said.
He said the Taliban stormed out of a basement where they were being kept and managed to reach some jeeps containing ammunition.
He said two American soldiers were trapped in the fort, causing U.S. and British troops -- about 12 of them -- to rush to their rescue.
"The reason they're here is that earlier when the Taliban grabbed some guns and started fighting, there were two American soldiers inside the fort: one of whom was disarmed and killed -- he was called Mike -- and another one was also in trouble; he was out of ammunition, had managed to sort of hold off the Taliban with his pistol but he was out of ammunition when the main body of American and British people arrived. There's no word on his fate yet. But the Americans were mounting a rescue operation."
It was later reported that the dead American was "affiliated" with the CIA.
Mr. Perry continued: "There's British and Americans. They're fighting together. There's a hand-ful of them. I would say 12. They came in two jeeps. There's British SAS and American Air Force ... the British Air are in plain clothes, the Americans are in uniform."
He said the soldiers together with the Northern Alliance were fighting the 800 prisoners but, "the Americans are running the show.
"The American mission is two-fold. It's to wipe them out. And ... they've got one last [American] in there they're trying to get out.
" ... the Americans and the British are co-ordinating air strikes 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.
"There are two tanks inside, two NA tanks that are being used and the Americans have made nine air strikes so far. It's an incredible thing to watch. You can see the missiles coming in."
The Americans used heavily armed AC-130 gunships and MH-60 Black Hawk helicopters to carry out the air strikes.
"I think that the Taliban are pretty much convinced that they're going to get killed I think. Dostum has a fairly fearsome reputation. He's run over his prisoners with tanks before now," Mr. Perry said.
"He's given them the assurance that they'll be safe but they're unlikely to trust him. If they get any opportunity to fight I think some of them are going to take it. There are ... Afghans, some Arabs and Chechens and some al-Qaeda operatives.
"This particular group have no chance of survival. They are going to get wiped out. If the Americans don't do it, then the Alliance are going to execute them.
"Among Northern Alliance, there were at least 20 dead in the initial [attack], when the Taliban overpowered their Alliance guards. I've heard there's probably three to four hundred Taliban [dead] now. The mission by the Americans and Northern Alliance is to kill every single one of them now.
"There's wild rumours that this must have been a plan, in fact, to surrender and then try and take the fort from the inside. That's NA speculation."
David Culler, a spokesman at U.S. Central Command headquarters in Tampa, Fla., later said the Taliban soldiers appeared to have planned the battle, "which appears to be a suicide mission on their part."
Soldiers were not the only ones at risk: Mr. Perry said some Red Cross workers were warned by a U.S. Special Forces soldier to get out of the fort and they jumped over a wall to escape.
Just before ending his report, he said: "There's great clouds of smoke rising from the fort, from bombing and from fires burning. The fort itself is of mud walls. The walls are about 20 metres high, but you can scale the side. [more gun shots] I wish that guy would stop doing that.
"We've got tracers going over our head. We're going to have to go get a taxi because they stop running at night."
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