URUZGAN (Afghanistan): Afghan villagers who were misidentified by US military forces as Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters said they were beaten and kicked during their capture and subsequent imprisonment in what they described as a wooden-barred ‘cage’ at an American base in Kandahar.

Several of the 27 former prisoners, who were released on Wednesday, said that American soldiers treated them so harshly that two men lost consciousness during the beatings while others suffered fractured ribs, loosened teeth and swollen noses.

“They were beating us on the head and back and ribs,” said Allah Noor, 40, a farmer and policeman for the new government who said he suffered two fractured ribs at the military base. “They were punching us with fists, kicking me with their feet. They said, “You are terrorist! You are Al Qaeda! You are Taliban!”

Four of the 27 men described their experiences here for the first time since they were nabbed in an early morning attack on Jan 24 at a local school and a district government office that Pentagon officials described as outposts for Al Qaeda and Taliban hold-outs. Twenty-one villagers were killed in the assault and one US soldier was wounded.

The US attacks in this remote village in the home province of Afghanistan’s interim leader, Hamid Karzai, added to a list of incidents involving misleading intelligence, mistaken identities and other errors that have led to killings of civilians and friendly forces during the war in Afghanistan.

The US military released the captives two weeks after they were detained, with one officer telling them, “We are sorry. We committed a mistake bombing this place,” according to the ex-prisoners.

US officials in Washington, acknowledging that something went wrong here, have said the CIA is distributing reparations money to the families of those killed. Although the US Central Command, which runs the war in Afghanistan, released the 27 men, it has steadfastly refused to acknowledge error, saying an investigation is underway.

Local government officials said that many of those killed or captured, far from being Taliban or Al Qaeda sympathizers, were involved in the struggle to oust the regime and that most were working for the new administration.

Two of the men killed in the attack were heading a local disarmament drive to collect weapons from former Taliban sympathizers and other citizens; one of the prisoners was the new district police chief, Abdul Rauf.

Like many of his newly recruited police officers, Rauf was spending the night at the district police office the night of the attack.

The gunfire and shouting outside the building jarred sleeping policemen awake just before 3am Rauf - who had a job similar to his current one before the Taliban took power in his province - recognized loud American voices.

“They are our friends,” a relieved Rauf told his frightened men. ‘Don’t run. They won’t do anything to us.” Several minutes later, Rauf said, he was curled on his side fending off boot kicks to his back and knee jabs into his chest. He screamed in Pashto, “We’re friends! We’re friends, friends, friends!” Rauf, who places his age somewhere between 60 and 65, heard one of his ribs crack, and then, he said, blacked out.

According to Abdul Qudoos Irfani, district chief of Uruzgan, the government building was occupied by officials loyal to Karzai, including Rauf, the police chief. The building contained stores of ammunition left over from Taliban occupation of the facility, he said.

About 100 yards from the school, Special Forces troops blasted open the metal front door of Abdul Ali’s mud-walled house. Soldiers grabbed Ali, a medic for the International Committee of the Red Cross, and tied his hands behind his back, his family recalled. Other soldiers searched the house, herding Ali’s two wives and 13 children into the centre courtyard.

Fazal Rabi, Ali’s 16-year-old son, had already been awakened by the shooting and blasts at the nearby school. “We were very scared,” he said. “We were so afraid.” “My father said, ‘Please shout, scream and maybe they’ll release me,’ “ Rabi said.

Rabi said the children and their mothers were already sobbing and crying. The soldiers later locked the family in the kitchen, tied the door shut and left the house.

Each of the prisoners interviewed said they had been beaten, kicked and punched with the soldiers’ fists, feet and in some cases, their gunstocks. “I thought they were going to kill me,” said Ziauddin, 50, who was working as a guard for the new post-Taliban government and said two of his upper teeth had been knocked loose. “We had no idea why they were beating us. We were completely innocent.” —Dawn/LAT-WP News Service (c) The Washington Post.