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The Fortress of War
Posted on Thursday, August 15 @ 12:56:37 EDT by
A first-hand account of the massacre of over 300 prisoners in the Qila-e-Janghi prison in Mazar-i-Sharif, November 2001.
This account was provided in Arabic, in person, to an Azzam.com correspondent.
It is the first English account of the Qila-e-Janghi incident.
"By the heaven holding the big stars!
And by the Promised Day (the Day of Resurrection).
And by the witnessing day (Friday) and the witnessed day (Day of Arafah, 9th Zhul-Hijjah).
Cursed were the People of the Ditch (the story of the Boy, the King, the Monk and the Magician as told in hadith).
Fire supplied abundantly with fuel.
When they sat by it (the fire).
And they witnessed what they were doing against the believers (burning them).
They had nothing against them, except that they believed in Allah the Almighty, Worthy of All Praise.
Who, to Whom belongs the dominion of the Heavens and the Earth!And Allah is Witness over everything.
Verily, those who put to trial the believing men and the believing women (by burning them and torturing them), and then do not turn in repentance (to Allah), will have the torment of Hell and they will have the punishment of the burning Fire.
Verily those who believe and do righteous deeds, for them will be Gardens under which rivers flow (Paradise).That is the great success."
[Surah Al-Burooj (85), Verses 1-11
This is the story of about a group of extraordinary people where words do not exist in order to describe what these heroes did in refusing the humiliation and disgrace that they would have had to face if they remained alive.
They were not like a flock of human beings, driven by the enemies of Allah with sticks, by force.
And they were not from those who preferred to live a life of humiliation enjoying the pleasures of this Life.
I was their leader, but for some reasons known to Allah, I was not with them when this situation arose.
This was not the first time that I had faced being absent from a group of brothers who were later martyred, for the martyrs are specially selected by Allah.
Many months have passed since I decided to participate in the battles in Northern Afghanistan.
I selected the first group, which consisted of a number of Mujahideen who had spent a long time North of Kabul:all in all they were an excellent group.
In this group, there were: Abdul-Aziz Noman, one with good manners and patience.
Usama Al-Adeni and his twin Hamza Al-Adeni (these two were martyred in Mazar-i-Sharif before the Qila massacre, when they were travelling in a convoy before the Mazar-i-Sharif fell).
Then there were Anjasha and Hassan Al-Shair, who was at the front-line for more than three years.
Then there was Abu Turab An-Najdi who had visited every land of Jihad from Afghanistan (first war), Bosnia, Chechnya and Somalia (against the Americans in 1992- he was believed to have shot down an American Black Hawk helicopter with an RPG-7 Rocket Propelled Grenade rocket).
Abu Turab was martyred in the bombing of a building occupied by Mujahideen at Khoja Ghar.
Rahil, who had spent some time away from the land of Jihad due to a previous injury, but returned even though he had not fully recovered.
He was martyred before the withdrawal from Kabul.
Ghareeb As-Sana'ani, the modest stranger with excellent manners.
Qa'qaa who had not left the front-lines for more than three years and was extremely beloved to the Afghans.
He was like a fierce lion, even though he was very young and was suffering from a knee problem that remained with him until he was martyred.
Asim As-Sana'ani, whom I called the 'Lion-Cub of Jihad' because he was very young and from a well known family of Mujahideen.
Afterwards, a number of brothers joined them, amongst them:
Abu Ayman Al-Qaseer who hated being away from the land of Jihad.
He returned from Yemen and when the Jihad ended against the Soviets and Communists, he joined the Taliban and remained with them from 1998 to 2001, when he was martyred.
There are many other brothers whom I have not forgotten and can never forget, but if I start mentioning all of their names, I will require a huge register to list them.
There was Abdus-Salam Al-Hadhrami, their leader.
With a small but strong body, he was an individual of impeccable manners, high morale and the courage of a lion.
I had been with him since 1997 during which we were never apart and away from each other except on one occasion for a few months.
That was when he returned to Yemen in order to try and find a way to get to Chechnya.
However, when he was certain that he would not be able to go there, he returned to Afghanistan leaving everything behind him and escaping from his family who were trying to get him married.
When he returned to his brothers in Afghanistan, he would sing anasheed (Islamic songs) to them during rest breaks but when it came to the battlefield, especially when the battle was at its most intense, he would be seen at the front.
I really miss him for he was very beloved to me and a friend of everyone who knew him.
He was always at the forefront of doing good deeds.
What more can I say except that may Allah accept him in His Paradise and I ask Allah to take me to where he is now.
He was martyred during the American bombing of Qunduz along with the Commander-in-Chief of the Foreign Mujahideen Forces in Afghanistan and Central Asia, Jumaboy Namangani Al-Uzbeki.
We do not differentiate between all of these martyrs but we hope that they are all near Allah insha-Allah.
The Crusade against Islam and its people began after the events of 11 September 2001 in which the Mujahideen broke the arrogance of the United States, their occupation and control of the Islamic sacred places and their support to Israel.
American bombing gradually increased and it was particularly strong over Mazar-i-Sharif in order to clear the way for Dostum's forces to take control of both the airport and city.
The aim behind this was to enable the Americans to use Mazar-i-Sharif as their base inside Afghanistan and then attack the Taliban, for at that time, the Taliban were holding their positions very firmly.
The Americans had almost failed in their efforts, their plans were unsuccessful and their morale was very low.
However, due to the sudden events in the war and what happened afterwards, that surprised everyone, especially the Taliban, things changed.
Ameer-ul-Mumineen Mulla Umar's statements and orders were clear:
"Be strong and use your full power to defend until the very last man.
Bush does not have power over our lives, when he is threatening to take our lives if we encounter him and his forces."
The bombardment increased tremendously and the morale of the Taliban began to slowly decrease.
Aerial bombing took place all over Mazar-i-Sharif, the regions surrounding Kandahar and on villages neighbouring it.
The Americans were indiscriminately bombing civilians, claiming that Usama Bin Laden and Mulla Umar were hiding there.
Civilian casualties were growing exponentially whereas Mujahideen casualties were very low in comparison to the intensity of the attacks.
Finally, there came the 7.5 tonne 'Daisy Cutter' bombs with the power of small thermonuclear devices and these really weakened the Taliban and lowered their morale once they saw the effect of these bombs.
Therefore, the Taliban then began to withdraw in an unorderly manner and that was when we received orders to withdraw from Takhar Province, where the Foreign Mujahideen were.
That was where the story began.
More than 1200 of the best Foreign Mujahideen, organised by Ameer- ul-Mumineen Mulla Umar himself, took their positions around the banks of the River Jijoon at the capital of Khoja Ghar.
The front-line extended from there to the Takhar, which was in Taliban hands at the time.
According to the planning of Mulla Fadhal, the Taliban Commander of Northern Afghanistan, he ordered his troops to move from the front-line in Takhar towards Qunduz (70km away from Taloqan, the capital of Takhar Province).
He did this in order to reduce further casualties and losses amongst his troops and to reorganise them especially since the North had become isolated and cut off from the main force concentration in the South once Mazar-i-Sharif, Samanjan, Bool Khamri and Bamiyan had fallen to the Northern Alliance.
There was a sense of panic and disorder amongst the Taliban even though Mulla Umar was repeating orders to return to positions and not to become disheartened, with his famous statement:
"We will either live with dignity or become martyred but we will never accept a life of disgrace."
At the beginning, the Foreign Mujahideen refused to withdraw from their positions because their morale was very high and they had just defended very well in their last encounter with the enemy, a few days earlier, which lasted for 12 continuous hours, by the end of which the enemy was unable to advance even a single inch despite having full artillery and air support from the Americans.
Eventually, the Taliban commanders were able to convince the Foreign Mujahideen to withdraw a day after the rest of the Taliban troops had withdrawn.
A group of 25 Arab Mujahideen remained even after their main group had withdrawn:
they were surrounded by the enemy but they did not allow the enemy to penetrate their positions.
This group of 25 eventually followed the rest two days later.
The Mujahideen's line of withdrawal was from Khoja Ghar to Dasht Arji and then onto Qunduz.
The whole journey was full of difficult hilly terrain with no trees or cover from the enemy.
However, due to the Grace of Allah, there was not a single loss in the entire journey despite heavy air and land bombardment on their positions.
They finally reached Qunduz and strengthened their positions therein.
Qunduz at the time was surrounded by the Northern Alliance on one side, the forces of Qaleem Jama (Dostum and Hazara Shia troops) who had arrived from Mazar-i-Sharif on another side and the forces of Shura Nizar, whose leader, Masood, had been recently kidnapped, from the other direction.
They were competing amongst themselves as to who should enter the city first and capture all the money and booty in it.
Dostum's forces were supported by the Americans.
Shura Nizar's forces were supported by Russia and Iran.
Both parties were supported by the American aerial support.
General Dostum, the former Communist officer, did his best to get a dialogue going so that his forces could enter the city peacefully.
He offered the Taliban surrender terms in which he would pardon them and not hand them over to the Americans, so that everyone could go home in peace and safety.
Therefore, the Taliban commanders were put in a testing and difficult position and were confused as to what they should do next.
A number of the Taliban leaders were in favour of the peace deal and a small group of them disappeared, only to appear soon after that, in Kandahar.
The other, larger group of Taliban leaders was very confused and some of them showed their courage in holding their positions and defending, even though they had the option to disappear and run away:
an example of one of these heroes was Mulla Abdur- Raoof Khadim.
During this time, the bombardment from the air and from the land was still continuing.
Furthermore, the Taliban were being pressurised by the local civilians to either surrender or leave Qunduz because they were suffering heavy losses from the American bombing which was not differentiating between Mujahideen and civilians.
They were also under pressure from Dostum who was offering them a peaceful solution and lots of guarantees.
Dostum did not want Shura Nizar's forces to take Qunduz and add it to their territory, thereby getting appreciation and favours from the Americans.
We really do not know what actually happened in these negotiations but suddenly the Foreign Mujahideen were ordered to leave the city and to go to Mazar-i-Sharif, for their own protection and safety.
When they would arrive in Mazar-i-Sharif, the Taliban would be handed over to Dostum's forces.
Thus the vehicles carrying the Mujahideen began travelling towards Mazar-i-Sharif.
On board the five trucks there were 350 Foreign Mujahideen consisting of 154 Arabs, 100 Uzbeks/Tajiks and the remainder Pakistanis and a few Taliban.
There were also four cars belonging to Dostum's forces and some troops belonging to Commander Nasir Khardi Al-Bashtooni who were acting as guides for the journey.
During the vast part of the journey, nobody touched them.
As they approached Mazar-i-Sharif at dawn, the guide gradually slowed down his car until he stopped.
He said that their destination is Balkh to which there were two routes.
The first route was short but dangerous with the fear of interception by Hazara Shia forces who would not listen to Dostum's men.
The second route was longer and dangerous because the guides wanted to trick Dostum and take the Mujahideen to Balkh without Dostum's knowledge.
However, if Dostum's men realised the plan, they might cause problems.
Therefore the guide informed the Mujahideen that he was sending a car ahead first to see what the roads were like and when it returned, the trucks would start moving again.
Thus the first car left.
After an hour, when the first car failed to return, the second car went.
Soon after that, at sunrise, the third car left and then the fourth one.
The Mujahideen sensed that something was wrong.
They scanned their immediate vicinity and found that they were on a plain not surrounded by any hills.
Suddenly, they heard and saw tanks and artillery pieces moving towards them.
They realised that it was a trap because the vehicles were not moving directly towards them, but to their sides.
The commanders of the Mujahideen then got together and quickly devised a defensive plan.
The Arabs were put at the front, the Uzbeks and Tajiks to the sides and the Pakistanis and Taliban fighters at the back.
Since they still had their weapons, they distributed them amongst themselves and everyone took his position.
Just then, one of the four cars returned and began to approach the Mujahideen trucks. The Mujahideen let the car approach and then the official inside it quickly began to walk towards the Mujahideen commanders, with his face full of fear that there might be a bloodbath.
He began shouting in his language that everything is OK and there is nothing to worry about.
He was busy trying to calm down the brothers and said that everything is OK with the exception of one problem:
General Dostum had discovered the trick and was insisting that he would only grant protection to the brothers on condition that they go to his headquarters and lay down their weapons.
When the brothers heard this, they became furious.
Until now, the hypocrites were not even able to come near their weapons, let alone ask them to surrender them.
When the Afghan official saw that the brothers were angry, he told them to call Mullah Fadhal in Qunduz to advise them and take orders from him.
The brothers were already in contact with their headquarters in Kabul, so they made one final contact with Kabul, which is where I was stationed.
I had arrived in Kabul from Takhar many days earlier in order to complete some important and urgent tasks once the American campaign had begun.
At that time, everything was normal in both Takhar and Kabul.
When I left Takhar, I promised the brothers that I would return the following day.
However, when I was on the way to them from Kabul, I received news en route that Bamiyan had fallen to the hypocrites and the road to Takhar had now been cut;
therefore I returned to Kabul.
Two days later, Kabul fell to the hypocrites.
Anyway, once the brothers had communicated with us, they contacted Mullah Fadhal who told them to listen to Dostum and do whatever he wanted them to do and to put their weapons down.
He told them that they had still not surrended in Qunduz or laid down their weapons, but that if the brothers did something stupid then the enemy forces would attack Qunduz (they had already started entering the city).
Mulla Fadhal said that his aim was to save as many lives as possible, on the orders of Ameer-ul Mumineen Mulla Umar.
After hearing this from Mulla Fadhal, the brothers were still confused.
Therefore, Mulla Fadhal called Mulla Zakir on the radio in order to speak to the brothers (Mulla Zakir was the Commander of our area of operations in Khoja Ghar and Dasht Arji).
It was only then that the brothers agreed to surrender and lay down their weapons.
However, they decided only to give up their large weapons, but held onto pistols, knives and grenades in case of an emergency.
As they began putting their weapons on the ground, most of the Mujahideen were still not satisfied, but amazed on what they were doing.
Once they had finished laying down their weapons, the guide asked some of the enemy troops to gather the weapons.
He asked the brothers if they had any more weapons to hand over;
they replied that they did not have any more weapons to hand over.
The guide then told the Mujahideen to board the trucks to prepare for the journey to Mazar-i-Sharif.
In front of the trucks, there was a car for the injured, who consisted of four brothers that had been wounded earlier in the war due to American bombing.
Amongst these four were Abu Nasir Al-Abini and Usamah Al-Hadhrami.
Thus this car raced away towards Mazar-i-Sharif before the trucks departed.
When this car arrived in Mazar-i-Sharif, some troops belonging to the Shia Hezbi-Wahdat faction stopped them and started asking the brothers questions.
When they discovered that Arab Mujahideen were in the car, they ordered the guide to leave the car and the troops began beating the wounded brothers.
The guide told the troops that he was one of Dostum's men and that these Mujahideen had surrendered, but they did not listen to him and they started to beat him as well.
They then took the brothers to a prison for further investigation.
Amongst the wounded brothers was an Afghan student who informed us that when they took the brothers inside the prison, they beat and tortured them even more.
This student told the Shia troops that he was not one of the Arabs and only got into their car because he was wounded.
The troops said that they did not care and that if this student wanted to be released, he had to pay them a ransom.
The student quickly remembered that the Mujahideen had a pistol so he told them about the pistol and gave it to them.
The troops said that it was not enough and they wanted more:
they wanted dollars.
Thus, the student told them where the money of the Mujahideen was and they took it and released the student.
As he walked away from the place, he could hear the Mujahideen shouting from pain as the Shia troops began beating them again.
After this, they took the Mujahideen to a hospital where they handed them over to the Americans to be sent to Cuba.
As for the trucks and the Mujahideen on board, they were taken to Qila-e-Janghi (Fortress/Castle of War), which is a huge 200-year old Fort located on the outskirts of Mazar-i-Sharif.
It is situated on top of a hill, surrounded by high, solid walls.
Behind the Fort, there is a water canal.
The Fort consists of a number floors:
in the basement, there are stores and rooms.
Since this is a military Fort, it was fully stocked with weapons and plenty of ammunition.
Initially, leaders and commanders of the Shia Hezbi-Wahdat faction arrived at the Fort, followed by officials from Dostum's forces, Americans and other Western troops and officials, including British MI6 officers.
The Mujahideen were divided into groups and put into different rooms within the Fort so that they could be interrogated room by room.
American CIA officers and officials from Dostum's and Hazara Shia forces were taking part in the interrogations, registering the names and other details of the prisoners.
The Americans were insulting the Mujahideen, swearing at them and making fun of Islam.
When the brothers saw what was happening, they exchanged some secret code words amongst themselves before the investigators had even finished with the first room.
When the first Mujahid was summoned in order to be searched, he put his hands in his pockets.
The CIA officer immediately shouted at him to take his hand out of his pockets, so he took his hands out of his pockets carrying two hand grenades.
He pulled the pins on the grenades and the two ensuing explosions martyred the Mujahid and killed the CIA officer, the Intelligence Chief of Mazar-i-Sharif, a top commander of the Shia Hezbi-Wahdat faction and some top officials from Dostum's forces.
The enemies then panicked and began running all over the place to get cover.
During this confusion, some of the brothers started gathering the weapons of the enemies who had just been killed, whilst others closed the doors of the rooms so that the other Americans and the hypocrites could not run away.
Another group went to the locked rooms and opened them in order to release the rest of the Mujahideen.
There was then a period of calm in which nothing appeared to be happening;
however, it was only a pause after which doors to Hell opened for the enemy.
The enemies were shocked as they had never seen anything like this before.
Usually, when prisoners are humiliated by someone more powerful than them, they do not do anything but accept the disgrace given to them.
Therefore, the enemies were not expecting any resistance from the Mujahideen but they what they did not realise was that they were dealing with liberated Muslim Mujahideen who never accept humiliation.
These Mujahideen had only surrendered to the enemy forces at the outset because their Commander ordered them to, but they never expected the enemies to treat them nicely and justly.
A gunfight then broke out inside the Fort between the Mujahideen and the enemies, who had now become cowards like frightened rats running away from death.
The enemies, especially the Americans and British, did not know where to go and where to hide.
Some of them began jumping from the high walls of the Fort, but none of them had the courage to face the Mujahideen for the cowardly enemies did not come to Afghanistan to die:
they only came for money and whatever their leaders promised them.
Within a short space of time, the Mujahideen finished all the hypocrites and Americans inside the Fort and then organised themselves into military groups and set their tactics and strategies.
Some of the Mujahideen went to the weapons stores to get more weapons such as heavy machine guns, whilst others went to the ammunition vaults to get ammunition.
Then they all took their positions inside the Fort again and the battle recommenced.
By the end of this first battle, the result was amazing due to the Grace of Allah:
15 Americans and 200 Afghan hypocrites had been killed, but there were no casulties amongst the Mujahideen except for the Mujahid who was martyred at the beginning after throwing the two hand grenades.
The Americans, British and hypocrites retreated and called in tanks and artillery to surround the Fort.
Then the brothers decided to face the enemy with all their courage and might, from inside the Fort.
American planes began flying all over the area to carry out aerial reconnaissance.
The Mujahideen allocated tasks amongst themselves in order to defend themselves from an anticipated attack, imminent from all the heavy weapons that were pointed at them.
However, they were surprised to hear voices through loud speakers calling them to surrender, but how could lions surrender to rats?
Throughout the next 24hours, not a single enemy soldier had the courage to even approach the Fort.
However, at sunrise the following day, American bombers began bombing the Fort and the ground attack began.
During the aerial bombardment, the Mujahideen could not do anything about it except for taking their wounded to the basement and decreasing the numbers of soldiers at the walls.
The bombardment carried on for the whole day but it stopped at night, only to resume with even more intensity the next morning.
Tanks began approaching the Fort but the Mujahideen did not allow them to get near the Fort.
With the intensified bombardment, smoke was now rising from the upper floors as ordance inside the Fort began to explode.
The fire even reached the basement and by the end of the third day and after uninterrupted bombing by one tonne bombs, most of the Mujahideen were buried beneath rocks and rubble whilst the survivors were badly injured.
Those who could still walk entered the deep tunnels inside the Fort and it was only then that the enemies entered the Fort for the first time in three days and they began searching it.
When they discovered that some of the injured Mujahideen were inside the tunnels under the Fort, two American Special Forces solders entered the tunnels in order to get them out, but one of the Mujahideen shot them both dead with his pistol.
The Mujahideen remained inside the tunnels, refusing to come out.
Then the Americans turned on the water pipes in order to drown the Mujahideen or force them to come out.
The Mujahideen still refused to come out.
After another two days or so, the enemies poured diesel fuel down the tunnels and lit it, igniting the insides of the tunnels.
The fires continued to burn in the tunnels for hours and hours, burning many of the Mujahideen who were already injured and cold, having stood in freezing water for over 48 hours.
It was only then that the Mujahideen were forced to leave the underground shelters and surrender.
At the end of the incident, 84 of the Mujahideen survived:
most of them were Pakistanis and amongst the wounded brothers was an American Mujahid (Sulaiman John Walker Lindh) whose presence alone embarrassed Bush when Bush claimed that there were no Americans with the Mujahideen.
The survivors were taken to Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, where they remain caged up like animals.
Sulaiman Walker Lindh is currently imprisoned in the USA, awaiting trial for the crime of defending the oppressed against the oppressor.
May Allah release them.
With this a great battle came to an end in which the Mujahideen refused to live a life of humiliation and disgrace, preferring instead a better life of honour and dignity in the Gardens of Allah near the Prophet (SAWS) - we ask Allah that it is so.
These are the events that we lived through and saw and Allah willing, we will never forget them for they are deep inside our hearts.
Our brothers have raced towards what we promised each other:
the Gardens of Allah - we ask Allah that it is so.
We remain on the same path, we will follow them, we will never surrender at any cost and we will not tire.
Allah made an agreement with us:
Allah purchased our lives and our wealth in return for Paradise and happiness if we fulfil the condition of fighting the enemies of Allah, killing them and being killed.
We ask Allah to accept from us, to guide and wake up our Ummah and the youth to return to the path that Allah has chosen for us:
the path of sacrifice, honour and Jihad.
"From amongst the believers are men who have fulfilled the oath that they made with Allah.From them are those that completed this oath (i.e. were martyred in Allah's Way) and from them are those that are still waiting, but they have never changed in their determination in the least..." [Quran 33:23]
was-salamualaikum warahmatullahi wa barakaatuhu.
Arab Field Commander Afghanistan, 2002
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