Word: qala
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...Taliban fighters, many of whom were foreigners, were transported from the field of surrender to a holding site in Qala-i-Jangi, a sprawling 19th century prison fortress to the west of Mazar, where Dostum stabled his horses. The convoy of prisoners had to pass through the city center; two weeks before, the Taliban had ruled the streets. The prisoners now peered out from under their blankets with shell-shocked, bloodshot eyes. The people of Mazar stared back at them with open hatred...
...Things went wrong almost immediately. Once inside Qala-i-Jangi, the Taliban soldiers were asked to turn out their pockets. A prisoner, waiting until Alliance commander Nadir Ali was near, suddenly produced a grenade and pulled the pin, killing himself and the commander. In a similar attack the same night, another prisoner killed himself and senior Hazara commander Saeed Asad. The remaining men were led into underground cells to join scores of other captured Taliban fighters. Despite the grenade attacks, the Alliance guards were not reinforced...
...Sunday Morning The next morning, two Americans went to meet the prisoners at Qala-i-Jangi. Their mission at the fortress: to identify any members of al-Qaeda among the prisoners. But the Americans didn't conduct the interviews one by one--another mistake. Instead, at 11:15 a.m., the pair--Johnny Micheal Spann, 32, one of the CIA agents who had been active in Afghanistan since the war's beginning, the other identified by colleagues only as "Dave"--were taken to an open area outside the cells and a group of prisoners brought to meet them. According to members...
...service members had been seriously injured and had been evacuated to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany. Four British soldiers were also reported wounded over the previous 22 hours, one seriously, though British officials--who never comment on the SAS--will not confirm that they were wounded at Qala-i-Jangi. On the Alliance side, there were said to be as many as 30 dead and 50 injured...
...quite a show." The soldier used a reporter's satellite phone to call his wife and tell her he might be on the TV news that night--"Tape it all day, will you? O.K. Love you, babe." At midnight an American AC-130 gunship began lazily circling Qala-i-Jangi. It flew five times over the same spot, spraying the southern end of the fort with a golden stream of fire. Later a massive ball of flame lifted up from the fort, kicking off a fireworks display as mortar rounds and ammunition belts fired off into the night sky. Explosions...