Posted on 12/12/2001 10:57:54 AM PST by classygreeneyedblonde
CHAMAN, Dec 11: Anti-Taliban tribal forces have launched a campaign to kill non-Afghan fighters in Kandahar and other parts of southern Afghanistan.
Reports said that over 400 non-Afghan Taliban fighters, mainly Arabs, had been trapped and massacred by tribal militias in and around Kandahar since the Taliban surrendered Kandahar, Hilmand and Zabul.
"A large number of dead bodies of Arab Taliban were found in various parts of Kandahar region," travellers reaching here from different parts of southern Afghanistan said. Tribal forces loyal to different warlords had killed them, they added.
"No tribal group is sparing the Arab Taliban," Amanullah, one of the witnesses, told newsmen near the border. People living in areas close to the Kandahar Airport had buried bodies of 21 Arab fighters the other day, he said, adding that they had been killed by the forces loyal to the governor of Kandahar.
Sources said that other tribal groups were also involved in the killing of non-Afghan Taliban. An uneasy calm prevailed in Kandahar city.
Intense fighting was reported for control of Lashkar Gah, capital of Hilmand.
In Spin Boldak, militiamen loyal to Wakil Abdul Samad and Akhtar Jan asked local people to surrender their weapons. They launched a campaign to deweaponize the area to restore peace. They warned that if people did not comply with the directive, they would raid their homes for recovery of arms and ammunition.
AFP adds: Dozens of Taliban who surrendered to the Northern Alliance died while being transported to a prison in sealed shipping containers, the New York Times reported on Tuesday.
The prisoners, many of them foreign fighters, died during the two to three-day journey from Kunduz to Shibarghan, Afghanistan, witnesses in Shibarghan told the daily.
On Saturday, Northern Alliance commander Colonel General Jurabek said 43 prisoners had died from injuries or asphyxiation in six containers, while three others died from wounds after their arrival in Shibarghan.
Several Pakistani prisoners, however, told the daily that many more people had died in the containers. One prisoner said all but seven people died from lack of air in his container, estimating the number dead at more than 100.
Another prisoner said 13 people died in his container and that the survivors had taken turns at breathing through a hole in the metal wall.
A local truck driver who spoke through acquaintances, said he saw soldiers unloading many bodies from a container outside the city.
The prisoners came from Kunduz, in northern Afghanistan, where a bloody uprising of captured Taliban fighters last month took US-led Afghan forces two weeks to put down, causing the death of some 230 prisoners and one US Central Intelligence Agency officer - the first US combat casualty of the Afghan campaign.
Never liked canned meat. Always reminds me of a Monte Python skit on SPAM.
how many civilians in england, northern ireland, scotland and wales have died in terrorist acts by from ira "true believer" types after the truce? the number's gotta be in the hundreds. almost every one of these deaths can be traced to an ex-ira guy that the brits let go. no sense to repeat that kind of mistake.
By the way, how 'bout them Steelers?
I'm really double-minded about this, don't want to see anyone so cruelly killed but also don't want to see terrorists back in business in another country, either.
I guess my point was not about morality of the NA abusing prisoners, more about "is this propoganda designed to discourage taliban troops from surrendering?"
Sounds like the natives are plenty pissed at the foreign oppressors.
Too bad Johnny bin Laden wasn't found in a can.
No, it looks like the Northern Alliance is killing captured Taliban, with methods which are quite reminiscent of the Nazi's handling of 'detained' Jews.
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