The Death Convoy Of Afghanistan

The day after negotiations ended, roughly 400 hard-core fighters made a break for it anyway, fleeing west. But the vast majority of fighters trapped in Konduz surrendered "like sheep," according to Naseri. "One went and the rest followed." The agreed site for the actual surrender was Yerganak, a desert spot about five miles west of Konduz. Most of the top Taliban and foreign commanders drove out, and their vehicles were promptly confiscated by the Northern Alliance. The rest walked. Four checkpoints had been set up at Yerganak to disarm the fighters and load them onto whatever vehicles were available: pickups, big-wheeled, open-topped Russian Kamaz trucks, even some container trucks. But the numbers streaming out of Konduz overwhelmed the facilities, and most of those surrendering waited three or four days in the desert.

Dostum and another Northern Alliance commander, Atta Mohammed, were at Yerganak to monitor the surrender. So were dozens of American Special Forces troops, according to U.S. and Afghan participants. Some of the Special Forces teams were zipping around the area on four-wheeler motorcycles; Dostum was filmed at the time enjoying a ride on the back of one. The Americans provided much of the food and water given to the waiting masses. But they were there primarily to provide credible muscle, a message that was reinforced by the frequent appearance of U.S. bombers streaking overhead.

At about this time, soldiers from Dostum's militia arrived at a container depot on the outskirts of Mazar-e Sharif, about 100 miles to the west, and recruited a driver we'll call Mohammed, a bearded man in his mid-40s. (NEWSWEEK has changed the names of several witnesses in this report to lessen the chance of reprisals.) Mohammed was told that his container truck was needed to ship captive Taliban fighters to Sheberghan prison. He was to pick them up that evening at the old fort in Qala Zeini, which lies on the road between Mazar-e Sharif and Sheberghan. The road actually passes through the fort: one gate in, one gate out.

Mohammed arrived at Qala Zeini about 7 that evening. Several other container trucks were already waiting inside the fort. So were about 150 soldiers, all Afghans. At about 9, the prisoners--a mix of Afghans, Pakistanis, Arabs and Chechens--arrived from Yerganak in open trucks and pickups. Soldiers ordered the prisoners down from the trucks and stripped them of their turbans, caps and vests. Then they herded the captives into the containers, as many as 200 to a truck. The fighters realized they were not going home, as promised. "F--- Shamuk Naseri," one driver recalls a prisoner's screaming. "He betrayed us." The doors of the container trucks were locked.

The prisoners probably realized their fate. "Death by container" has been a cheap means of mass murder used by both the Taliban and the Northern Alliance for at least five years. Abandoned freight containers--international standard size, 40 feet by 8 feet by 8 feet--litter the roads of Afghanistan, rusting reminders of the many tons of aid that have poured into the country over the past 20 years. It was reputedly a savage Uzbek general named Malik Pahlawan who first saw the container's potential as a killing machine in 1997. After a Taliban assault on Mazar-e Sharif had been repulsed, Pahlawan--according to a subsequent U.N. report--killed some 1,250 Taliban by leaving them in containers in the desert sun. When the containers were opened, it was found the inmates had been grilled black. When the Taliban took Mazar-e Sharif in 1998, they in turn killed several hundred enemies in thesame fashion.

In the case of the Taliban prisoners from Konduz, the November temperatures weren't hot enough to blacken them. But after a few hours, they started beating on the sides of their overstuffed cells. "We're dying. Give us water!" some shouted. "We are human, not animals." Mohammed used a hammer and spike to bang holes in his container, until one of Dostum's soldiers heard the banging and angrily demanded to know what he was doing. Mohammed said that he was sealing holes to prevent the prisoners' escape.