[b]Did they decide to search them after that?[/b]
I'm not sure. I don't know about that. And then this morning some more journalists came. There was a guy from ... London and a woman. They were interviewing Taliban prisoners when the Taliban suddenly just pounched on them. They beat the British guy quite badly, but he was rescued and taken out of the fort. But that's when the Taliban grabbed guns off the Northen Alliance, overpowered them, killed at least twenty and the Northern Alliance lost control of the fort and had to withdraw from the fort.
[b]Do you know what set them off?[/b]
Actually I think it was probably the British journalist. It's merely the sight of a Western face. They're here to fight a jihad; they see a western face; they assume that's who they've come to get.
[b]Would being interviewed by a woman also have anything to do with it?[/b]
No. She was outside.
[b]This happened when they talked to the British journalist?[/b]
Yeah. That's right.
[b]Now is he OK? You said they beat him up pretty badly.[/b]
We passed him in a taxi. [gunfire again] He was kind of sitting up. He looked pretty shocked. I'm going to see him a bit later. I think he's got sort of flesh wounds. i don't know if he's got any broken bones. I could tell he was beaten quite badly.
[b]So the shock of seeing his face, they rose up, they overcame their captors and took the gun from the Northern Alliance.[/b]
That's right. The NA lost control.
[b]So those two Americans. They happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time?[/b]
Absolutely. There were also some Red Cross workers in there. They told me that one American Special Forces broke into their meeting, said they had to get out of here, out of the fort, because the situation was out of control.
[b]And then they got out?[/b]
Yeah. They jumped over the wall.
[b]Now have there been any other injuries as far as the alliance. One confirmed death and one possible?[/b]
Among Northern Alliance, there were at least twenty dead in the initial, when the taliban overpowered their alliance guards. I've heard there's probably 3, 400 hundred Taliban [dead] now. The mission by the Americans and Northern alliance is to kill every single one of them now.
[b]These are among the thousand that surrendered yesterday, correct?[/b]
Yeah 800. They're all here. There's wild rumors that this must have been a plan, in fact, to surrender and then try and take the fort from the inside. That's NA speculation.
[b]Now have they completely taken over the fort or is the battle happening inside the walls the fort?[/b]
This is happening inside the fort. They never took the entire fort.
[b]How big is this fort?[/b]
It's about half a kilometer long and half a kilometer -- it's half a kilometer square. It's pretty big. Ooooohhhh, big explosion.