http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia_china/story.jsp?story=110213
Americans 'covered up massacre of 280 Taliban'
By Justin Huggler in Kandahar
15 December 2001
The Americans and their Afghan allies appear to be trying to cover up
the slaughter of more than 280 foreign Taliban fighters believed to be
loyal to Osama bin Laden in Kandahar airport.
Mystery has surrounded the fate of the foreign fighters since the
airport was captured last week, after intensive bombing by the
Americans. Afghan anti-Taliban forces acknowledged that more than 280
fighters had been holding out in the airport, but claimed that only
about 20 were killed. The rest, they claimed, escaped alive.
But one of the Afghan soldiers who took part in the fighting said
yesterday that he was ordered to return to the airport a day after it
was captured, where he says he helped bury the bodies of about 280
mostly Arab fighters. The soldier, who used the pseudonym Ahmad Gul
to protect his identity, said the majority were killed by American
bombs.
Two other witnesses, Abdul Basir and Abdul Kadim, said they saw two
bulldozers dumping earth into what they believe was a mass grave at
the airport.
Two Arab prisoners captured in the fighting - who should be protected
under the Geneva conventions - also seem to have disappeared. Mr Gul
said he handed over two ethnic Arab prisoners-of-war he helped to
capture to some Americans, presumably members of the CIA, who
interrogated them on the spot, then took them away. There has been no
word on them since.
Reporters were allowed into the airport for the first time yesterday.
More than 200 US Marines are setting up a forward base inside, and
dozens of armoured troop carriers were parked around the complex. A US
Marine captain gave photographers a guided tour.
The airport was devastated in the fighting. Huge craters lay in the
runway, and almost all the windows in the modernist terminal building
had been smashed, broken glass crunched under our feet.
But not included in the guided tour was the grave site, a short
distance away, where Mr Gul said he helped to bury the foreign
fighters. The Americans have sealed off the entire airport site,
making it impossible to reach the alleged grave.
Mr Gul said he was one of a small group of Afghan soldiers who were
sent back to the airport the day after the end of the fighting there
to help bury the bodies. He said that on the day he arrived, last
Saturday, the soldiers collected about 30 bodies. The next day, he
said, they collected as many as 250.
Mr Gul's version of events would strengthen the argument of those who
say the Americans prefer to kill the foreign fighters rather than take
them alive.
It comes after the massacre at Mazar-i-Sharif, where American and
British forces fighting alongside the Northern Alliance killed more
than 150 foreign Taliban prisoners-of-war, when they quelled a prison
rebellion using air strikes.
In Tora Bora, the Americans continued bombing despite an offer from
al-Qa'ida fighters to surrender to the United Nations or diplomats
from their own countries. The US would only accept an unconditional
surrender which was not forthcoming.
The clashes with the foreign fighters around Kandahar started three
weeks ago, as Afghan anti-Taliban forces backed by US air strikes
attacked Kandahar province. Anti-Taliban soldiers met the foreign
fighters at the small town of Takht-e Pul as they advanced north
towards Kandahar. The anti-Taliban forces later pushed the foreign
Taliban back to the airport,
and a nearby al-Qa'ida training camp.
It was at Takht-e Pul that Mr Gul said he helped capture two Arab
Taliban fighters. "We saw a car coming and stopped it to search it,"
he said. "It was full of weapons. The man inside spoke only Arabic and
we didn't understand him. He attacked us and we shot and killed him.
Then we saw another car coming and we took the two men inside
prisoner. We took them to the Americans. They interrogated them in
Arabic, then they took them away. I have not seen them since."
Several Afghan soldiers in Kandahar agreed that the Americans had
taken away two Arab Taliban prisoners. But David Romley, a US Marine
captain at the airport yesterday, claimed that American forces in
Afghanistan were holding only one "battlefield detainee": John Walker,
the American Talib who survived the massacre at Mazar. The two Arabs
have disappeared.
After a while, Mr Gul said, the anti-Taliban forces pushed the foreign
fighters back to the airport. "We would run towards them and attack
them, they they would counter-attack, running out towards us," said Mr
Gul. "The Americans bombed whenever the fighting flared, but stopped
whenever it died down. We offered the Arabs a chance to surrender, but
I don't believe they were ready to. When we caught a few, they started
fighting us. One even pulled out a grenade and killed himself."
In the end, it seems, almost no prisoners were taken. There are
believed to be some foreign Taliban being held in Kandahar prison. It
is not clear whether they were fighting at the airport.
The day the fighting ended at the airport, Mr Gul and the other
soldiers were ordered to advance into Kandahar city with their
commander, Gul Agha, now the governor. On the way, he said, they were
attacked by 18 more Taliban fighters who they killed in the road. The
international Red Cross was asked to collect and bury some bodies by
the roadside. These may have been
the ones. But it was Mr Gul and his comrades who were sent back to
bury most of the bodies. Mr Gul said: "Most of them had been killed by
the bombing. Some had a leg or an arm blown away. A few had been
killed by gunshots from our men."
On Saturday, the first day Mr Gul spent collecting the bodies, Mr
Basir and Mr Kadim - their real names - passed by on their way to
attend the meeting which appointed Mr Agha governor of Kandahar. They
stopped at the airport, where they said they saw two bulldozers
dumping earth into a large trench that looked like a mass grave. They
saw the bodies of two dead foreign Taliban lying by the side or the
road.
At the airport yesterday, the US Marines were busy clearing away the
debris, and checking the perimeter for mines, setting up the site as a
forward base for operations which Captain Romley said he did not "care
to characterise".
Meanwhile, the site where Mr Gul claimed more than 280 massacred
Taliban were buried lies out of reach.
