Warlord: 450 killed in jail battle

The three-day battle between Afghan Taliban prisoners and Northern Alliance guards in the Qualai-i-Jhangi fort is over, according to the local Uzbek warlord, and all the prisoners have been killed.

Ali Razim, a spokesman for the warlord of Mazar-i-Sharif General Abdul Dostum, said: "The situation is completely under control. All of them were killed."

The revolt of the prisoners began when one pulled a grenade from his hat as he was jumping off the truck which had brought him to the compound. After the grenade exploded, the prisoners, including Arabs, Chechens and Pakistanis of al Qaeda, seized machineguns and mortars from their guards

American and British special forces were called to the scene as the battle spread across the old fortress. US aircraft dropped missiles but one went astray, killing four Northern Alliance guards and wounding five Americans.

The Northern Alliance say they had more than 100 wounded and dead after only the first day of fighting. In Pakistan the English-language daily Dawn has spoken of a "gruesome massacre" about which questions must be asked of the Northern Alliance and their American backers.

General Dostum's staff say 450 prisoners were being held in the fort, and it must be presumed that all have been killed.

On the border road from Kandahar to Pakistan, the town of Spin Boldak is still in Taliban hands, and local Pashtuns of the Achakzai and Nurzai tribes are about to attack it, after talks to surrender the town broke down.

Earlier reports that the Taliban had given up the town have been denied. "We have informed our leader Gud Fida Mohammad about the failure of the talks," Pashtun negotiator Mohammad Anwar said. "An attack can be launched at any time."

A party of anti-Taliban Pashtuns who drove into the town early today in two jeeps have been captured, according to local Taliban.

As the UN-sponsored talks to decide a future structure for Afghanistan got under way in Bonn, they were angrily denounced by one of the former Mujahideen warlords bidding for leadership of the Pashtun peoples.

Gulbadin Hekmatyar, head of the Hizbi-i-Islami Party and a former prime minister of Afghanistan, said the Bonn talks were a ploy by the US to promote its influence in the region.

From his exile home in Tehran he said: "Only g roups fitting US requirements and interests have been invited to the Bonn conference.

"The Afghan war is in reality a war between the US and all countries which do not accept US supremacy and hegemony."

? The prime minister of Somalia, Hassen Abshir Farah, today denied that there are any al Qaeda bases left in his country.

Peace talks underway in Bonn
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