Posted 2:15 p.m. Dec. 8
By Patrick W. Higgins
U-WIRE Washington Bureau
A man claiming to be an American citizen and believed to be a Taliban soldier was taken into custody by U.S. Special Forces following a prison riot near the Afghanistan town of Mazar-e-Sharif this week.
John Phillip Walker Lindh, a 20-year-old who refers to himself as Abdul Humid, was one of 86 survivors following the Northern Alliance's three-day campaign to suppress a Taliban prison riot.
Lindh, along with Taliban soldiers, two of which also claim to be Americans, emerged from the underground cells after the Northern Alliance bombarded the complex with firebombs, rockets, and eventually a flood of water, causing many prisoners to drown.
Lindh was taken to a Turkish-Afghan hospital where American soldiers promptly took him into custody, treating his gunshot wounds and interrogating him about his involvement with the rebel government.
In an interview with Newsweek, Lindh's parents, Frank Lindh and Marilyn Walker insisted their son, born in the District of Columbia and raised in Silver Springs, Md., and later in San Francisco must have been "brainwashed" by the Taliban leaders.
Born and raised as a Catholic, Lindh expressed an interest in the Islamic religion as a teen, according to his parents. After high school, he moved to Yemen to study Arabic, then migrated to Pakistan to study the Koran at which point his parents lost contact with him. Lindh resurfaced last Saturday, clad in a beard and covered in soot and dirt beyond recognition.
At this point, U.S. military and federal officials refuse to label Lindh as an American or a prisoner of war, and are equally vague on his future.
"I do know a bit about the various options and I have not landed on one at the moment," Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told the Associated Press. "You can be certain he will have all the rights he is due."
As the facts are slowly being pieced together, the debate over the legal future of Lindh is intensifying as legal scholars are speculating federal charges of treason and seditious conspiracy, and have not ruled out the possibility of a military tribunal.
By Patrick W. Higgins
U-WIRE Washington Bureau
A man claiming to be an American citizen and believed to be a Taliban soldier was taken into custody by U.S. Special Forces following a prison riot near the Afghanistan town of Mazar-e-Sharif this week.
John Phillip Walker Lindh, a 20-year-old who refers to himself as Abdul Humid, was one of 86 survivors following the Northern Alliance's three-day campaign to suppress a Taliban prison riot.
Lindh, along with Taliban soldiers, two of which also claim to be Americans, emerged from the underground cells after the Northern Alliance bombarded the complex with firebombs, rockets, and eventually a flood of water, causing many prisoners to drown.
Lindh was taken to a Turkish-Afghan hospital where American soldiers promptly took him into custody, treating his gunshot wounds and interrogating him about his involvement with the rebel government.
In an interview with Newsweek, Lindh's parents, Frank Lindh and Marilyn Walker insisted their son, born in the District of Columbia and raised in Silver Springs, Md., and later in San Francisco must have been "brainwashed" by the Taliban leaders.
Born and raised as a Catholic, Lindh expressed an interest in the Islamic religion as a teen, according to his parents. After high school, he moved to Yemen to study Arabic, then migrated to Pakistan to study the Koran at which point his parents lost contact with him. Lindh resurfaced last Saturday, clad in a beard and covered in soot and dirt beyond recognition.
At this point, U.S. military and federal officials refuse to label Lindh as an American or a prisoner of war, and are equally vague on his future.
"I do know a bit about the various options and I have not landed on one at the moment," Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told the Associated Press. "You can be certain he will have all the rights he is due."
As the facts are slowly being pieced together, the debate over the legal future of Lindh is intensifying as legal scholars are speculating federal charges of treason and seditious conspiracy, and have not ruled out the possibility of a military tribunal.
