A Brush With Disaster At Taloqan's Hospital
Wounded Foreign Fighters Were on Suicide Mission
TALOQAN, Afghanistan -- They arrived at the hospital in the middle of the night last week, 10 soldiers with unknown injuries, all speaking Uzbek and insisting that they not be separated.
The admitting doctor that night, Azizi, was also Uzbek and knew that these were foreigners who had volunteered to fight with the Taliban. Adhering to Taloqan Public Hospital's policy of nondiscrimination, he processed the soldiers and assigned them to a single room.
Everyone who met the soldiers or heard them speak knew that they were foreign fighters. But that didn't attract attention in a hospital where wounded enemies lay side by side in almost every room, in a town that has changed hands many times during Afghanistan's seemingly endless wars.
So no one suspected that the Uzbeks were rigged as human bombs: 10 soldiers on one final mission. The hospital -- where doctors work for less than $10 a month, when they get paid -- had been marked for destruction.
The potential disaster was averted the day after they were admitted. A Northern Alliance commander became suspicious of the 10 foreigners who would talk rapidly with one another, then fall suddenly silent and pensive. One by one, the patients were called out of their room, seized, stripped and taken prisoner.
When the search was over, 15 small bombs and hand grenades were found strapped to the men's bodies and hidden in their packs, along with an assortment of knives and spiked fighting knuckles -- all ready for use when the men decided the time was right.
"During that day, they told us they wanted to speak only to a big commander or a general," said Sayed Azimullah, an anesthesiologist. "They had a plan to kill foreign journalists or top commanders. We were very afraid of these people."
Hospital workers said that under less hectic circumstances, the explosives and weapons would have been discovered when the men were admitted. But with the final battle underway for nearby Kunduz at the end of a days-long bombing campaign by U.S. warplanes, a constant stream of trucks and donkeys carried wounded soldiers and civilians from the front line to the hospital.
Shamasuddin, 31, the night nurse who applied the foreigners' first dressings, did not have time to thoroughly examine his new patients. He dressed their most serious wounds and sent them to their room to rest.
Shamasuddin said the soldiers told him that they had been wounded in a rocket attack at Kunduz two days earlier. Their injuries, he said, were consistent with that story: Two had serious chest and leg wounds, six had minor injuries; two were uninjured and told Shamasuddin they were there to help their friends.
"They were acting strange," the night nurse said. "They just kept staring, eyes glazed over like they were depressed. Then they would get all excited suddenly."
Mohamad Haroon, 28, the nurse in charge of distributing medicine that night and into the next morning, said: "I wasn't sure what to think. One time I went into the room to give medicine. They were talking much when I arrived. As soon as I entered the room, they fell silent. And then the door closed suddenly behind me. I was frightened. I left quickly."
Despite their suspicions and sensitivities concerning the 10 Uzbeks, Taloqan's doctors continued with their work through the night and into the next day. They added the Uzbeks to the long and growing list of patients to be visited on daily rounds. The 60-bed hospital was operating at 150 percent capacity, and scattered among the soldiers were children with missing hands and feet, casualties of land mines and bombs.
In the end, it was a military man who exposed the Uzbeks' plan. A Northern Alliance commander -- no one at the hospital can remember his name -- was visiting one of his wounded soldiers. He had heard on the street that 10 foreign Taliban soldiers were being treated at the hospital. He decided to investigate.
The commander went to their room and listened outside the door. He watched surreptitiously from the hallway, and what he saw and heard made him suspicious. He questioned the doctors and learned that the foreigners had never been searched. He communicated his concerns to the chief surgeon, and within minutes a Northern Alliance special forces team arrived at the hospital.
Azimullah, the anesthesiologist, said he watched the alliance agents "call them out one by one, telling them they wanted to speak. And then when each one came out the door, they were knocked to the ground and captured, one after the other."
The 10 Uzbeks were taken to Taloqan's jail. Awaz Khan, the alliance's security chief for Taloqan, said he is certain there are more like them waiting for the right moment to strike. The focus of his office's investigations, he said, would now be on the threat of terrorists scattered among Afghan civilians.
"We are asking the same questions you are," he said in response to a reporter's question. "We don't know how many there are still out there, free, in hiding. We only know that they are there."
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