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The House of War, an hour-long documentary from Emmy-award-winning director Paul Yule, is an insiders’ account of the Mazar-I-Sharif uprising in Afghanistan. Featuring previously unseen footage, The House of War reveals what really happened in the Qala-I-Jangi fortress, from the moment the first prisoner blew himself up with a hand grenade, through seven days of ferocious fighting, to the final surrender. In November last year, after the fall of the northern Afghan town of Kunduz, around 400 Taliban prisoners surrendered to General Abdur Rashid Dostum, a warlord fighting with the Northern Alliance. The prisoners, mainly foreign fighters that Dostum wanted handed over to the UN, were taken to Qala-I-Jangi, a mud-walled arsenal bristling with heavy-duty armaments. A number of reporters and a German TV crew were also in the fortress. As some of the prisoners were being processed, one of them ominously tells the TV cameras: ‘We are not surrendered.’ Later, before the watching camera crew, a Taliban fighter blows himself up with a hidden grenade. The prisoners, many with their hands tied behind their backs, are being interrogated the next day by two CIA agents. Fighting suddenly breaks out and a full-scale uprising is underway, with western TV crews caught in the thick of it. Hopelessly outnumbered by their prisoners, Dostum’s men fall back, accompanied by Dave, a CIA operative, and the film crew. Cameras capture Dave in a state of shock immediately after he claims he has had to kill some of the attacking Taliban to make good his escape. Dave’s colleague, Johnnie ‘Mike’ Spann, was not so lucky, falling victim to the onrushing prisoners. Robert Pelton, a CNN freelance journalist, recalls: ‘For Dave and Mike to be in that courtyard by themselves was a major breach of common sense. To have two Americans wade out in the middle of more than 400 foreign prisoners was just unbelievable.’ Alex Perry from Time Magazine speculates that they may even had a hand in their own downfall. He says: ‘The threats that they made to the Taliban could quite plausibly have helped set off the revolt … [What they said] completely undermines what Dostum has said about guaranteed security.’ But this was just the start of the Americans’ problems. Air strikes were called in against the now heavily armed Taliban, but one of the bombs fell on Northern Alliance positions. Over the next seven days, the battle of Mazar-I-Sharif would become a microcosm for the barbarity of this war, with vicious fighting at close quarters. One journalist still cannot forget the sight of members of the Northern Alliance trying to finish off a wounded Taliban fighter by dropping rocks on his head. Dodge Billingsley, a veteran war reporter, describes the battle as ‘the most intense firefight I have ever been in’. Alessio Vinci of CNN remembers: ‘The same courtyard that I had left three days before, with 400 Taliban fighters giving themselves up, was littered with those same fighters torn to pieces. Body parts everywhere. I have covered several wars – I have never seen so many dead bodies in one place. It was just unbelievable.’ And when the fighting was finally over, there was one last surprise. Out of the depths of the fortress emerged John Walker, an American member of the Taliban. A week previously, he had been caught on camera being interviewed by Mike Spann. Their lives and fates had become intertwined in one of the biggest stories of the war in Afghanistan. Read the chat transcript with director Paul Yule here |
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