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Strange case of the American Taliban fighter

KABUL (Reuters) - A 20-year-old American who fought for the Taliban and survived a bloody prison uprising near the northern Afghan city of Mazar-i-Sharif last week said his heart had drawn him to the hardline Islamic movement.

``I was a student in Pakistan, studying Islam and came into contact with many people connected with Taliban,'' John Walker said in an interview shown on CNN television on Monday. He was being held by U.S. forces in northern Afghanistan.

``I lived in the region, the North West Frontier Province (of Pakistan),'' he said. ``The people in general have a great love for the Taliban so I started to read some of the literature of the scholars, the history of Kabul ... my heart became attached to that.''

A spokesman for U.S. Central Command, which is running the military campaign in Afghanistan, confirmed that a man who said he was an American was in the control of U.S. military forces.

``Military forces in Afghanistan do have in their control a man who calls himself a U.S. citizen,'' Marine Major Brad Lowell, a Central Command spokesman, said.

``He was among the al Qaeda and Taliban prisoners; he was held by the Northern Alliance in Mazar-i-Sharif. He is injured and is being given medical assistance by U.S. forces,'' Lowell told Reuters.

The CNN clip showed the man appearing dirty, with a long beard and grimacing as if in pain as he answered questions from a stretcher.

He was described by Newsweek magazine's Web site as ``a white, educated-sounding, apparently middle-class American'' who identified himself as Abdul Hamid. It said he was taken into custody on Saturday at a hospital where he had been taken for treatment of minor gunshot and shrapnel wounds.

Hamid was identified by his parents as John Phillip Walker Lindh, of Northern California, according to Newsweek.

His parents told Newsweek they had contacted officials at the State Department and the U.S. Embassy in Pakistan but had received no information.

SAW PHOTO ON INTERNET

Marilyn Walker said on Sunday that the photo of her son that appeared on Newsweek.MSNBC.com was the first indication that she had had of his whereabouts since he left a religious school in Pakistan's Northwest Frontier Province, where he had been studying the Koran, seven months earlier.

John Walker, who uses his mother's last name, told Newsweek he had traveled across the border to Afghanistan to help the Taliban build a ``pure Islamic state.'' He told CNN he had gone to the Afghan capital, Kabul, and volunteered to serve the Taliban.

Because 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 the disputed region of Kashmir and then returned to fight recently with the Taliban at Kunduz, Afghanistan.

John Walker was born in Washington in February 1981, Newsweek said. He is the second of three children of a home health care worker and a lawyer, Frank Lindh. His mother said he spent the first 10 years of his life in the Washington suburbs of Maryland, moving to Northern California in 1991.

John's father, Frank Lindh, who is divorced from Marilyn Walker, said that his son took to Islam naturally. ``I support him and his studies,'' Lindh said. ``He's learned Arabic and is memorising the Koran. He's a very good scholar.''

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. ``He was isolated. He didn't know a soul in Pakistan. When you're young and impressionable, it's easy to be led by charismatic people.''

The parents said they did not know if he would be charged with a crime but would stand by him.

Referring to his son's study of languages and dedication to religious studies, Lindh told Newsweek: ``I'm proud of John. He's a really good boy. A really sweet boy.''

NO COMMENT ON LOCATION

The special forces soldiers who detained Walker took him aside for treatment and later left with him, doctors told the magazine. A Northern Alliance military source said the U.S. soldiers had taken him to Mazar-i-Sharif, Newsweek said, adding that U.S. forces refused to comment on his whereabouts.

Walker told Newsweek earlier he was a Washington native but indicated he grew up elsewhere in the United States. He said he converted to Islam at the age of 16 and later went to Pakistan to study the Koran, Newsweek said.

Walker said he came into contact with Taliban teachings while studying in Pakistan and traveled to Afghanistan six months ago to help ``because the Taliban are the only government that actually provides Islamic law,'' the magazine reported.

He fought with the Taliban at the siege of Kunduz in northern Afghanistan and surrendered along with hundreds of other fighters after the two sides negotiated a deal.

He was later transferred along with hundreds of other prisoners to Qala-i-Jhangi fortress west of Mazar-i-Sharif, where a revolt broke out a week ago. The uprising was violently put down by U.S. warplanes and Northern Alliance ground forces.