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Tale of an American Taliban In an exclusive, a U.S. citizen on the horror at Kala Jangi By Colin Soloway NEWSWEEK WEB EXCLUSIVE Dec. 1 — Abdul Hamid is tall, thin and barefoot in a filthy black tunic. A prisoner of the Northern Alliance, he sits with his elbows bound behind his back with a strip of cloth, his right leg and left foot bandaged for gunshot wounds. Hamid’s face is almost entirely covered in dirt and black soot, but it is quickly apparent that he is not just another beaten and frightened Taliban warrior. Abdul Hamid, age 20, ...

<p>KABUL (Reuters) - A 20-year-old American who fought for the Taliban and survived a bloody prison uprising in northern Afghanistan said his heart drew him to the hard-line Islamic movement.</p> <p>A Pentagon official said on Monday U.S. military forces had in their control a man who claimed to be an American who came into their possession in the Mazar-i-Sharif area, near where the prison uprising took place.</p>

Lawyers for John Walker Lindh, the American who fought with the Taliban, claim he was systematically brutalised and threatened with 'torture and death' after US troops seized him. The claims come as his lawyers prepare to argue that he was a soldier of the Taliban, not an anti-US terrorist. At the centre of his defence will be his claim that the witness statement he provided to his FBI interrogators was given under duress and in the hope of ending his mistreatment. Lindh is being tried in an ordinary court and will not face the death penalty, unlike foreign prisoners, who...