Five days inside a Taliban jail

[Turborama]

Special report: Guardian reporter Ghaith Abdul-Ahad was with a group of Taliban last month when US and Afghan forces attacked. In the second of a three-part series, he tells how, after the assault, he ended up being imprisoned by the fighters he had come to interview.

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The jailer in Dhani Ghorri was a short man with bent legs, a chest-long beard and vicious eyes. Taliban commanders from different groups and factions in the area handed him their captives and he would keep them, interrogate them and execute them if the orders were given.

Wherever he was, the cell went with him. It could be a cave or a room in a farmer's house. In our case it was a barn somewhere between Baghlan and Kunduz. It measured two metres by four, with no windows and a very low ceiling. Inside it was dark most of the time. The dirt floor was covered with goat and sheep droppings.

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Many people had passed through this cell in the past few months, the jailer said. There was a truck driver whose crime was to transport goods for Nato from the northern border of Afghanistan to Kabul. His truck was burned along with several others when the Taliban ambushed the convoy on the road. "We released him after 10 days, but he paid a big fine." Then there was an Afghan National Army officer who was also released after his tribesmen pledged that he wouldn't go back to the army.

But not all of the prisoners were let go. "We don't beat the prisoners unless we get orders to question them," he said solemnly. "Then we beat them to get them to tell us the truth. Before the truck driver we had a spy who stayed here for two months. We beat him every day until he confessed and finally he was executed. I hanged him myself."

Full article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/nov/25/taliban-afghanistan-prison-special-report