Security forces with tanks and heavy guns surrounded Kabul's main prison yesterday, as authorities resumed negotiations with rioting prisoners but warned they could use force.
Gunfire continued to ring out from Policharki jail on the outskirts of the Afghan capital, where officials say al-Qaeda and Taliban prisoners incited a riot by hundreds of inmates late Saturday and took control of much of the prison.
Mohammed Ibrahim Sahdat, a government negotiator, told journalists after talking to the prisoners that four of the rioters had been killed and 38 wounded.
Hamidullah, a prison medic, said inmates had written in notes thrown to him from cell windows that five inmates had been killed and 30 injured in two separate cell blocks in firing by police guards.
It wasn't immediately possible to reconcile the different accounts.
Mohammed Qasim Hashimzai, the deputy justice minister, said he wanted to end the standoff peacefully, but warned that the government could use force.
"We can take all these prisoners in one hour," he told reporters as he traveled to the prison to restart negotiations. "But to prevent bloodshed we are trying to negotiate."
Prison authorities cut off water, electricity and food to the rioters, said Abdul Salaam Bakshi, chief of prisons in Afghanistan.
From inside the jail, inmates could be heard shouting, "God is Great!"
They were armed with small knives and clubs fashioned from wrecked furniture, but did not have guns, Bakshi said on Sunday.
The unrest broke out late Saturday in Block Two of the prison, which houses about 1,300 of its 2,000 inmates, including 350 al-Qaeda and Taliban, after prisoners refused to put on new uniforms, delivered in response to a breakout last month by seven Taliban prisoners who had disguised themselves as visitors.
Hashimzai confirmed that rioting had also spread on Sunday to Block One, which houses hundreds more inmates. He said no prisoners had escaped.
A man claiming to be a spokesman for the inmates in Block One called reporters and demanded retrials for all the prisoners, saying many were innocent while others had been given unfairly harsh prison sentences.
The man, who identified himself only by the name Maqsodi, said the riot would continue until the government met their demands.
"Two-thirds of the prisoners here are innocent. The courts were unfair," he said.
It was not possible immediately to confirm the man's identity.
Sahdat, the government negotiator, who is also a member of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission, confirmed that some prisoners were demanding their cases be retried.
Security forces had yet to gain access inside parts of the jail under prisoners' control, including a wing of the prison housing its 70 female inmates and about 70 children who live with them.
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