Prisoners await life or death decision

Dispensing with the formality of a key for the padlock to the cell, a Northern Alliance soldier grabbed an axe and chopped his way through the bolt. The door was thrown open, inside sat 53 alleged Taliban in neat rows, waiting on the whim of the base commander who would decide whether they would be shot.

Silent and wide-eyed, the group captured in and around Kabul had been recently joined by 18 Pakistanis, who were trapped trying to escape after the collapse of the Taliban in the Afghan capital.

These all claimed they had not come to fight, just to offer support for the Taliban and Osama bin Laden. Recruited in madrassahs (Islamic schools) and untrained in guerrilla war, they had been left behind by the Taliban retreat. Now, sitting in a gloomy classroom-sized cell, they faced justice Afghanistan-style: death or freedom.

"I came here to support the Taliban because they are good Muslims and so am I. I didn't want fight anyone," pleaded Ibrahim Ranzan, 25, who sat in the light of the cell's only window to warm himself against the bite of winter. He admitted, however, that all the Pakistanis in his party had been exhorted to join the Taliban's jihad.

Mohammed Jian Karm, captured with Ranzan, mimed that they had all been severely beaten and kicked in the testicles. "We're not getting any more than a piece of bread and a cup of water each twice a day," he whispered. That, by Afghan standards, is good treatment. Arabs and Chechens, many of them members of Bin Laden's al Qaeda network, are summarily executed wherever they are found.

The Mujahideen holding the Pakistani and Afghan prisoners at Bag Daoud treat their captives with easy contempt.

Ralah Mullah Jailani, who said he was 73 but looked younger, insisted: "I'm not a Talib, I am a businessman." His jailer, commander Najiqbullah, said: "Rubbish, don't lie, you're a commander. We found you with a gun."

Jailani's alleged lie could tip the balance from life to death when base commander Haji Sher Alam gets back. What will happen then? Najiqbullah was asked as he looked at the terrified prisoners.

"Oh," he announced to the room. "Then the commander will decide if they will be killed."