American found in ranks of Taleban

3 Dec, 2001 09:28 PM3 mins to read

NEW YORK - An American has survived the bloody prison revolt near Mazar-i-Sharif ... but on the other side.

The 20-year-old, who called himself Abdul Hamid, fought with the Taleban and has been taken into custody by United States special forces troops.

The man, described by Newsweek magazine as "a white, educated-sounding, apparently middle-class American" has had treatment for minor gunshot and shrapnel wounds.

Hamid was identified by his parents as John Phillip Walker Lindh, of Northern California. His parents contacted the US State Department and the US Embassy in Pakistan but had received no information.

Marilyn Walker said that the photo of her son on a Newsweek website was the first indication that she had had of his whereabouts since he left a religious school in Pakistan's Northwest Frontier Province, where he had been studying the Koran, seven months earlier.

John Walker said he had travelled across the border to Afghanistan to help the Taleban build a "pure Islamic state." He told CNN that he had gone to Kabul and volunteered to serve the Taleban.

He said he received combat training at a camp in Northern Afghanistan, fought with Pakistani allies of the Taleban in Kashmir and then returned to fight with the Taleban at Kunduz, Afghanistan.

John Walker was born in Washington in February 1981. He is the second of three children of a home health care worker and a lawyer, Frank Lindh.

His mother said he spent his first 10 years in the Washington suburbs of Maryland, moving to California in 1991.

John's father, who is divorced from Marilyn Walker, said that his son took to Islam naturally.

"I support him and his studies," Lindh said. "He's learned Arabic and is memorising the Koran. He's a very good scholar."

Marilyn Walker said she was shocked by her son's statements of support for the Taleban and bin Laden.

"If he got involved with the Taleban, he must have been brainwashed."

In other developments:

* The Washington Post reported that Osama bin Laden had plied Taleban leaders with cash.

Mohammed Khaksar, a former Taleban Deputy Interior Minister, said it was not uncommon for bin Laden to hand over sums of up to $US100,000. Gifts of expensive cars were also used to secure influence and buy freedom of movement for al Qaeda.

* Rival Afghan factions meeting in Germany made progress towards setting up an interim government for Afghanistan as US bombers and ethnic Pashtun fighters pounded away at Kandahar.

The Northern Alliance and royal factions put forward the name of former Afghan Justice Minister Abdul Sattar Sira to serve as the head of the administration.

- REUTERS

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