An American (20) who fought with the Taliban and survived the prison uprising near Mazar-i-Sharif last week has been taken into custody by US special forces troops, Newsweeksaid on its website yesterday.
The man - described by
Newsweek
as a white, educated-sounding, apparently middle-class, American who identified himself as Abdul Hamid - was taken into custody on Saturday at a hospital where he had been taken for treatment of minor gunshot and shrapnel wounds.
Mr Hamid was identified by his parents as Mr John Phillip Walker Lindh, of Northern California, according to the Newsweekwebsite.
Ms Marilyn Walker said yesterday the photo of her son that appeared on Newsweek.MSNBC.com was the first indication she had of where he was since he left a religious school in Pakistan's Northwest Frontier Province, where he had been studying the Koran, seven months earlier.
Mr Walker, who uses his mother's last name, told Newsweekhe had travelled across the border to Afghanistan to help the Taliban build a pure Islamic state. He told CNNthat he had gone to the Afghan capital, Kabul, and volunteered to serve the Taliban.
As he did not know the local languages, he said, the Taliban told him to contact forces supporting Osama bin Laden. He said he received combat training at a camp in Northern Afghanistan, fought with Pakistani allies of the Taliban in Kashmir and then returned to fight recently with the Taliban at Kunduz, Afghanistan.
Mr Walker's father, Mr Frank Lindh, who is divorced from Marilyn Walker, said: "I support him and his studies. He has learned Arabic and is memorising the Koran. He's a very good scholar".
Ms Marilyn Walker said she was shocked by her son's statements of support for the Taliban and bin Laden. "If he got involved with the Taliban, he must have been brainwashed," she told Newsweek.