Taliban have taken over Guantánamo Bay, a detention centre built by the Americans inside the huge Bagram military base.
Gatekeepers News reports that after the American troops left hurriedly in August, the Taliban unlocked all the cells to free hundreds of suspect which include ISIS-K prisoners, from an affiliate of the Islamic State terrorist group.
The Taliban are currently manning the gates of the huge sprawling military base which grew into a small city and was the coalition’s main military hub during its 20-year-long military mission.
The detention centre was initially built by Russian invaders in the 1950s but the Americans extended it to include a gym, a 50-bed hospital and the much-feared detention centre.
The military, in the detention centre, housed and interrogated the Taliban fighters they caught in battle or suspects they feared would end up on the battlefield.
Some were viewed as high-ranking terror suspects but there were also hundreds of ordinary Afghans – farmers, stallholders, students and Taliban sympathisers deemed dangerous or suspicious.
Gatekeepers News reports that the detainees were held, sometimes for years, without charges or trials.
According to reports, the interrogation rooms are heavily padded to ensure they’re sound-proofed and the Taliban fighters have vowed revenge.
“All of the Talibs are ready to carry out suicide car bombs to avenge this,” one told Sky News.
“They’re not scared… We do this for Allah, not profit… America has lots of money but they’re not willing to blow themselves up. The Taliban will sit in a car with a bomb, drive it and set it off. We’ve made sacrifices before and after this we will again. We are suicide attackers.”
One of the Taliban who was held in Bagram for two-and-a-half years told the news medium he was tortured.
“Every time you broke one of their rules – like having a nail cutter – you were punished and tortured,” says Aziz Ahmad Shabir.
“They put me in a room alone for a month and made the cell very cold. Now I’m mentally sick and my mind is not working well… in the two-and-a-half years I was held here, a lot of damage was done to my head.”
He said he was a farmer when he was seized.
When asked why he was arrested, he smiled saying “because I’m a Muslim.”
