British Mujahideen In Bosnia from Paul Coker on Vimeo.
"I'm Backing Britain"
(By waging violent Jihad)
"Look for the Black Banners in the East..."
Many of these guy later turned up in Albania, Kosovo and Montenegro, many of them being sent to Afghanistan and back for training and further radicalisation in the late 1990s.
7/7 : McDaid from Paul Coker on Vimeo.
"Well, I am the most al-Qaeda-ist one 'ere...!"
Woolwich: The Invisible Jihadi from Paul Coker on Vimeo.
"Mick, you f*cker...
A small number of them were still there in late October 2001 when the CIA and US Army Rangers moved in - doubtless, some of them met their end amongst the 5000 trainee Mujahed who were left to die of suffocation, heat exhaustion and dysentry following the capture of Mazar-i-Sharif by the CIA and the rump Northern Alliance (largely leaderless in the wake of the assassination of Commander Ahmed Shah Massoud on 9/9/2001), before being dumped into mass graves in the pits of Dasht-i-Leili.
The story of the 1998 winter campaign by Ahmed Shah Massoud, Afghan National Hero, Lion of the Pansheer and leader of the Northern Alliance.
Assassinated by the CIA, September 9th 2001.
Vladamir Putin knows what time it is.
"This is the only picture of the Dasht-e-Leili mass grave cleared by the United Nations and Physicians for Human Rights.
Typically, PHR does not publish autopsy photos."
I quote The Enemy:
"The Battle of Qala-i-Jangi (also incorrectly referred to as the Battle of Mazar-i-Sharif) took place between November 25 and December 1, 2001, in Northern Afghanistan, following the invasion by United States forces to try to overthrow the Taliban, which it had accused of harboring Al-Qaeda operatives.
Hundreds of men, many from outside Afghanistan, surrendered who were believed to have been fighting with the Taliban; they were held as enemy combatants for interrogation at Qala-i-Jangi fortress by United States, British and Northern Alliance forces.
The 300-500 prisoners, having expected to be freed after surrender, rebelled and the fighting escalated into one of the bloodiest engagements of the War in Afghanistan.
Northern Alliance fighters, assisted by British and American Special Forces and air support, took seven days to quell the revolt.
They killed all but 86 prisoners."
"Prisoners." Remember that well.
It ought to go without saying that this is a War Crime and atrocity that puts even the totality of the crimes of Camp X-Ray at Guantanamo this last decade and more into the shade.
But no-one knows about it.
Because its not on television.
"The only U.S. fatality was the CIA officer Johnny "Mike" Spann, the first American to be killed in combat during the 2001 U.S. invasion of Afghanistan.
Among the surviving prisoners were two American citizens suspected of fighting with the Taliban: 21-year-old Yaser Esam Hamdi and John Walker Lindh."
On November 24, with the military situation in Northern Afghanistan becoming critical, many Taliban commanders agreed to surrender to the Northern Alliance general, Abdul Rashid Dostum.
Between 300 to 500 foreign fighters (mostly from Pakistan and Arabic-speaking countries of the Mideast), believing that they would later be set free, drove to Mazar-i-Sharif and surrendered their weapons. Included in the group were some men caught in the area at the end of the fighting.
As the United States forces wanted to question the fighters about possible links with the Al Qaeda network, they transferred the men as prisoners to Qala-i-Jangi ("the war fortress" in Persian), a 19th-century fortress that Dostum had previously used as his headquarters and ammunition depot.
Dostum claimed the surrender was a "great victory" for the Alliance, a bloodless success that would allow the future reconciliation of citizens of Afghanistan.
On November 24 the foreign Taliban suspects were transported to the fortress, now turned into a prison. The prisoners had not been searched, and some had concealed weapons during the surrender.
On the day of the surrender, prisoners with grenades committed suicide and killed two of Dostum's commanders in separate incidents at the makeshift prison.
Despite the four deaths, the allies did not reinforce security at the prison.
On the 25th, two CIA officers, Johnny "Mike" Spann from the highly secretive Special Activities Division, and Dave "Dawson" Tyson, an Uzbek speaker and area expert, arrived at Qala-i-Jangi to carry out the interrogations.
The CIA officers questioned the prisoners, especially John Walker Lindh. At the time, the interrogators noticed only that Lindh was a European-looking prisoner and different from the others, so he was singled out. Spann asked him, "Are you a member of the IRA?" (The Taliban had advised Lindh to claim he was Irish to "avoid problems.") (Part of the interview is shown on British Television (Channel 4 news). Approximately two hours after the interviews began, the prisoners attacked Spann, Tyson and the few Northern Alliance Guards.
The prisoners overran Spann and some of the other guards, as well as capturing the southern half of the Qala-i-Jangi fortress, including the armory. The prisoners took a large store of AK-47s, RPG rocket launchers, mortars and ammunition.
With Spann missing in the chaos, Tyson escaped to the northern and more secure part of the fortress, where he was trapped with a television crew from the German ARD network. He borrowed their satellite phone, and called the U.S. embassy in Uzbekistan, requesting reinforcements.
That night two AC-130 Spectre gunships circled over the fortress (callsigns GRIM 11 and GRIM 14), firing thousands of rounds at the prisoners. The main ammunition depot was hit, creating a huge explosion which continued to burn throughout the night.
In the basement of a central building, a holding cell was occupied by men who refused to surrender. Northern Alliance fighters shot rifles into the area, threw in grenades, and finally poured oil in and lit it on fire. This failed to kill or dislodge all the fighters.
On the 28th, General Dostum arrived and tried to persuade the last prisoners to surrender, to no effect. The next day, he ordered the basement flooded with frigid irrigation water.
The final Taliban [and foreign] fighters surrendered on 1 December.
Of the estimated 300–500 prisoners brought to the fortress, only 86 emerged alive from the flooded basement, including John Walker Lindh."
No comments:
Post a Comment