Category: ‘Abd al-Ra’ūf Ḥikmat

NOTE: To view issue number sixty of the Ṭālibān’s magazine al-Ṣamūd see here.
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PART 1
Kandahar Prison
Kandahar’s main prison is located west of the city in the Sarpoza area, north of Kandahar-Herat highway. It is largest government prison in south Afghanistan, with the capacity to hold thousands of prisoners. The prison comprises several sections surrounded by high and impenetrable walls.
This prison is fundamentally well-built, with high surveillance and watch towers set up at its four corners. It is also surrounded by a number of subterranean walls, further to its high [over ground] walls, to prevent tunnels being dug to the outside.
Despite its strong construction and tight security measures, this prison has become the scene of a wonderful story not only in Afghanistan around the globe. Over the past eight years, political prisoners have been able to escape from this prison only three times. The first time was in June 2003 when Mujahideen prisoners dug a tunnel from inside the prison to the outside, enabling all 45 of this ward’s prisoners to escape via the tunnel. Also in June 2008, the Islamic Emirate launched armed and martyrdom attacks on this prison that resulted in the death of all the prison’s guards and released close to 1,200 Mujahideen prisoners. After this incident, the Americans and Kandahar officials paid close attention to the maintenance and preservation of this prison; Canadian forces trained special policemen to guard the prison, watch towers were increased and monitoring cameras installed; the entire prison was encircled by a deep and wide trench. Despite all these measures, the Mujahideen were able, after long planning, for the third time to release 541 prisoners on 25 April 2011.
Pure Fantasy
One of the Mujahideen in Kandahar city, who by his connections gained full knowledge of the inside and outside of the prison, pondered whether it would be possible to dig a tunnel from the inside of a house on the other side of the street into the prison as a means of releasing the prisoners. This fantasy and vision seemed laughable at first even to its owner; he dared not share his opinion with others, but, after more time and continued thinking, he reached a conclusion. On one of these days, while he was riding a motorcycle with two of his comrades, he shared that view with them. They thought it was impossible and deemed it dangerous to attempt, but they placed their trust on Allah and shared their opinion with the Mujahideen high command in Kandahar and they revealed to their trusted comrades their decision to implement this plan regardless of danger.
Concrete Workshop
Six months ago these Mujahideen rented a house opposite the south corner of Kandahar prison. Initially they built a new room. Then they brought in all necessary equipment and machines to make concrete, hiring a number of workers who worked during the day. But in the afternoon, when the workers left, the Mujahideen stayed under the pretence of serving as guards. It was during that time that they proceeded to dig the tunnel from within the room they had just built.
Hard Work for Four Months
At first, four Mujahideen implemented this process: one of them was to hit with the pickaxe, digging the tunnel, while the other three were to move the soil. The tunnel was narrow and the soil could not be moved out by wheelbarrows, so some operation planners went to the market and bought a number of children bicycles, removing their small wheels and fixing barrows on them. They were able to prepare wheelbarrows that suited their task. Now they filled these barrows with soil, pulling them by a rope to the tunnel opening and collecting the soil there before moving it to the lorry. In the morning, when the dirt trucks headed to the city for its sale, the Mujahideen would bring in their soil-filled lorry and sell the dirt to get rid of it. For two months, four Mujahideen were working in the tunnel digging, then their number increased to eight Mujahideen and they were digging four meters every night. When their continued work reached 100m, they faced the issue of ventilation and lack of oxygen; nevertheless they carried on until cutting a distance of 150m. At this point it was terminally difficult to continue working, due to lack of oxygen, and the work carried on no further. In the beginning they tried a ground fan; it resolved the ventilation issue but it was winter and the cold weather caused headaches. Then they made an air-pumping machine, delivering air by a pipe from the outside to the inside of the tunnel. This was the best method to resolve the ventilation and lack of oxygen – the machine worked quietly by a charged battery. But they then realized the risk of their digging a tunnel under the road that carried the heavy enemy vehicles to the interior of the prison: There was a possibility of a tunnel collapse under intense vehicle pressure. The question was how deep was the tunnel to be dug to exclude that possibility. As an experiment, they parked a lorry atop the tunnel; it suffered no damage, assuring them that it would not suffer because of enemy vehicles. The tunnel was 2.5m deep between the house and the public road, but as a precaution they deepened it further. Four months passed and the tunnel went 220m, a well iron pipe surprised them before realizing it was not a prison pipe but a pipe to a village south of the prison. In fact, the tunnel diggers, having no map, deviated from the correct path to the right, crossing the road and reaching a village close to the prison. Here Mujahideen recognizer that the target could only be reached with the prison map and distance measuring tools.
One and a Half Months of Efficient Work
The tunnel diggers who lost their way and made an extra 120m now downloaded the prison map off the internet and by which were able to pinpoint the prison location. Using earth measurement tools they re-dug at the distance of 100m of the tunnel directly towards the prison. However, with the passing of the winter, night was shorter. Consequently they increased the number of Mujahideen labourers until they reached twenty-one. Furthermore, earth evaporates less in summer, so ventilation was less of an issue, and the work was faster and more efficient. By digging 166m they reached the middle of the prison (it must be added that the Islamic Emirate’s site mentioned the distance dug by Mujahideen including the distance dug by error, giving a total of 360m, when the precise distance, excluding additional distance, was 266m. It is worth noting, however, that the tunnel’s height was 70cm and its width 60cm ). The Mujahideen inmates were in two separate locations within the prison: Most were in the political ward, where they numbered 530, but a small number were in a room called ‘Tawqif Khanah’ [detention room]. The tunnel was dug first towards Tawqif Khanah room, as it held a Mujahid aware of the case. He used to hit the ground for one reason or another so that the tunnel diggers would know whether they were ahead or behind or on target. Thus they were able to pinpoint the place, but for verification they poked a blade into the room, until the prisoner assured them of hitting the target. They moved on to the political ward. Five days produced a further 23m, reaching the political ward, cell 7 of which held two prisoners aware of the case. The aim was to take the tunnel to cell 7. Here again the tunnel diggers wanted to raise a blade to ascertain and avoid any error when opening the tunnel to the prison. The Mujahideen were hesitant: were they underneath cell 6 or 7? To keep the matter secret when the blade would be raised, the two prisoners held a Quran session; all the rooms were vacant, the two aforementioned prisoners left, one to room 6 and the other to room 7. When the blade was raised they realised they were under room 6, contrary to their expectation. Then two further meters were dug until reaching room 7. Now they could not vacate the rooms with the Quran completion excuse again, so the Mujahideen used the afternoon time when prisoners would go out to washing rooms and get prepared for the noon prayer; the blade was raised and it made it successfully to room 7. The opening place was specified for the escape operation day. It should be added that the blade raising operation was made subsequent to a wise and interesting plan: The prison ground was about 2.5m above the tunnel, with the tunnel’s height of 70cm, how a long blade could fit through this tunnel to reach the prison ground? The Mujahideen cut iron blades of 50cm length and joined them together; when they were raising a blade 50cm by a car jack, they would fix to it another blade and raise it by the jack. So for dismantling the blades, they prepared a machine that would be attached to each blade then hit by a hammer downwards. This was how they were able to pinpoint the location precisely.
The Plan to Extract the Prisoners
After construction of the tunnel, the persons responsible for digging finished their work and requested from the Islamic Emirate’s high command guidelines concerning the plan to extract the prisoners. Therefore officials from Kandahar Province’s and high ranking officials of the Islamic Emirate held continuous consultations in order to conduct a secure extraction.
As a result of the consultation, the following plan was adopted. The mastermind of this operation, who on his own swung the pickaxe laboriously to dig 300m of the tunnel, would himself be the commander of the prisoner extraction. During the operation, he would adopt