November 29, 2001	Thursday	Ramazan 13, 1422

LONDON, Nov 28: Human rights group Amnesty International on Tuesday called for an inquiry into reports that hundreds of Taliban fighters had been killed in a prison in Mazar-i-Sharif.

The London-based organization urged the Northern Alliance, the United States and Britain to investigate the clashes within the Qala-i-Jangi, a fort on the outskirts of Mazar-i-Sharif.

After negotiating a surrender, hundreds of foreign troops fighting with the Taliban were escorted from the town of Kunduz to the fort by the Northern Alliance last weekend.

The circumstances surrounding the fighting that followed were still not clear, although some prisoners are reported to have overpowered guards and seized firearms, according to Amnesty.

British and US special forces were reported to have been involved in the fighting, including by directing US air strikes, an Amnesty statement said.

It said an urgent inquiry should look into what triggered the violent incident, including any shortcomings in the holding and processing of prisoners, and into the response by Northern Alliance, US and British forces.

“It should make urgent recommendations to ensure that other instances of surrender and holding of prisoners do not lead to similar disorders and loss of life,” Amnesty said.

It should also ensure that the key role of the International Committee of the Red Cross in overseeing the processing and treatment of prisoners is facilitated.

“The outcome of this inquiry, and any disciplinary or other measures that may be taken against anyone found responsible for wrongdoing, should be made public,” the statement concluded.

In Baghdad an official Iraqi statement said the prisoners had been massacred by US forces and the Northern Alliance.

The statement said the Iraqi government regarded the killings as a gratuitous crime.

“Iraq calls on the international community to condemn this crime so as to end the voracity of the United States for massacres and killing of Muslim people, including Afghans,” the statement said, quoted by the INA news agency.

The three-day bloody uprising was finally put down early on Wednesday, leaving hundreds of bodies littering the complex along with dead horses, charred vehicles and shell casings.

EYEWITNESS ACCOUNT: A select group of journalists was allowed to visit the fort on Wednesday.

The fort looked every bit the battlefield, littered by the charred and skeletal remains of jeeps and trucks bombed by US warplanes. Large pine trees were stripped bare, houses gutted by rocket fire.

Parts of the fort behind the southern ramparts are inaccessible because of the piles of cut wood, twisted metal and collapsed houses. It was here that the last holdouts made their final desperate stand until Wednesday.

Against this Afghan apocalypse, troops of the Northern Alliance come and go, opening up crates of ammunition, pounding a stranded truck with tank fire.

But there are places they won’t go, specifically the many blockhouses where bodies are still buried in the rubble.

“There are perhaps a few more buried beneath the debris who are only pretending to be dead. There might also be bodies booby-trapped with grenades,” says Alliance General Abdul Rashid Dostam.

Sporting a black jacket over a brown robe, the powerfully built Dostam says his men had given the Pakistani, Chechen, Arab and Uzbek members of the Taliban’s “foreign legion” the chance to give up. But they refused.

“So we had to kill them” he says, gingerly smoothing out his mustache.

One of the commanders who directed the assault on the fortress said 450 pro-Taliban foreigners had been killed in the uprising.

DOSTAM: Dostam paces up and down the courtyard. Then he climbs the eastern ramparts, punched out by a US bomb, where once stood a comfortable apartment with bedrooms and salons.

He sits in an armchair surrounded by broken glass and bits of rug, looks out serenely and says: “I’m going to rebuild the fortress.”

A few shots and explosions puncture the silence, triggering frightened whinnies among the surviving horses.

The soldiers here also seem no less tense for the end of the fighting, one more episode in the relentless warfare of Afghanistan. But they do find some small bits of comfort.

One strips a pair of black tennis sneakers off a corpse, carefully washes them in a muddy brook and puts them on with glee.

The spoils of war, Afghan style.—AFP