Anti-Taliban fighters trade fire

12/24/2001

By CHRISTOPHER TORCHIA
Associated Press Writer

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Afghan tribal forces traded fire with armed al-Qaida fighters convalescing in a hospital in the Afghan city of Kandahar in a bid to subdue the Arab gunmen, who have been holding out in their ward for weeks, an official said Monday.

The fighters, who are believed to be linked to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida terrorist network, had said they would kill themselves if anyone tried to take them from Mirwais Hospital, where they were held in a second-floor jail section once used by the Taliban for political prisoners.

Hospital officials had said the men were armed with grenades and pistols and had threatened to blow themselves up if anyone other than the medical staff approached them.

Sporadic fire was reported inside the hospital during the operation late Sunday and Monday.

One of the Arabs was captured Sunday night and the other eight remained holed up in the hospital, where they were brought by comrades before the surrender of the former Taliban stronghold of Kandahar earlier this month, said the official, Nusrat Ullah.

``We have surrounded the place. Whenever we fire, they fire,'' said Ullah, an aide to Haji Gulalai, intelligence chief in the post-Taliban administration of the southern city.

He said by telephone that U.S. soldiers, who have set up a base at the Kandahar airport, were not involved in the attempt to capture the pro-Taliban Arabs.

He said anti-Taliban forces did not suffer any casualties, but did not know whether any Arabs were injured.

Some are believed to be uninjured, while others were wounded by U.S. bombing or in fighting with Afghan tribal forces opposed to the Taliban.

Gul Agha Sherzai, a former governor of Kandahar, again is in charge of the city, but he has yet to establish a functioning administration and his forces were slow to move against the Arabs in the hospital.

The hospital, funded by the International Committee of the Red Cross, had been guarded by fighters loyal to Mullah Naqibullah, a tribal leader accused of being close to the Taliban militia.

Ullah, Gulalai's aide, said Naqibullah's fighters were no longer at the hospital. Earlier this month, four other Arab fighters escaped from the hospital, and doctors speculated that Naqibullah's men allowed them to flee.

Thousands of Arabs went to Afghanistan to join the cause of jihad, or holy war. Many were affiliated with the al-Qaida network, blamed for the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in America.