Glad To See We Aren't The Only Ones

Hundreds of blindfolded bodies found in underground prison

An underground prison containing hundreds of bodies has been discovered in Afghanistan.
Police General Ali Shah Paktiwal has told the BBC the mass grave was unearthed in a former military base on the outskirts of the capital, Kabul, dating back to the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s.
General Paktiwal says many of the bodies were found blindfolded with their arms tied.
The grisly find was made after a 70-year-old Afghan man, who recently returned to the country, led police to the site.
"He told us he worked as a driver when there was a Russian military base here," General Paktiwal told the BBC World Service
"They used to bring people here. They put them in these rooms, they shut the door and then they put bricks and stones and covered the door with earth."
Several hundred bodies have been discovered in the 15 rooms unearthed so far but it is not known how many were buried there in total.
General Paktiwal, who is overseeing the criminal investigation into the mass grave, says many of the victims had their arms tied and had been blindfolded or gagged.
It is the second mass grave reported to have been found near Kabul.
NATO troops last year discovered another one near the notorious Pul-e-Charkhi prison in the east of the city, where many opponents of the Soviet invaders were tortured and killed.
In April this year, another mass grave containing the remains of more than 400 Afghans killed during the communist era was discovered in the remote north-eastern province of Badakhshan.
The Soviets occupied Afghanistan from 1979 to 1989 but communism was only defeated in 1992, when a savage civil war erupted between the factions who led the fight against the occupiers.
Officials said most of the victims appeared to have been civilians killed for opposing the Moscow-backed communist regime.
The grave was discovered weeks after the Afghan Parliament passed a reconciliation law granting amnesty to those behind the decades of atrocities, including during the communist regime.
- AFP