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Surprise, mom! I'm fighting for the Taliban
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[QUOTE]Originally posted by Tahna Los: [QB] [i]From the [URL=http://globeandmail.ca]Globe and Mail[/URL][/i] <h1>Surprise, mom! I'm fighting for the Taliban</h1> [b]Catholic family in San Francisco suburbs shocked to see son captured in Afghanistan[/b] By DOUG SAUNDERS Tuesday, December 4, 2001 – Page A1 LOS ANGELES -- Teenage rebellion is something of an industry in the San Francisco Bay area, but John Walker's case is extreme even by local standards: It's not every kid who becomes a PoW in a holy war against his own country. Somehow this 20-year-old, a shy, skinny Irish Catholic kid who went to high school in the plush northern suburbs of San Francisco, transformed himself into an Islamic holy warrior, a member of an elite branch of the Taliban known as Answar (the helpers), personally trained by Osama bin Laden. Mr. Walker had disappeared from family and friends for months until Saturday, when TV cameras picked up images of a bearded, grimy Taliban warrior being pulled from a besieged prison fortress near Mazar-e-Sharif in northern Afghanistan. He had fought at the siege of Kunduz and surrendered along with hundreds of other fighters. Among the 86 Taliban who had somehow survived a violent prisoner revolt and subsequent bombing, shelling, burning and flooding of the fortress a week ago was a smiling, pale man who called himself Abdul Hamid. He was born John Phillip Walker, and the fact he had become a Taliban fighter came as quite the surprise to his parents in the prosperous suburb of San Anselmo. His transformation began three years ago with a typical moment of youthful radicalism, when, at 17, he read the autobiography of Malcolm X and announced to his parents that he wanted to become a Muslim scholar. They figured it was a phase. "It was clear he had developed a different point of view," Mr. Walker's father, a lawyer named Frank Lindh, said in an interview yesterday. Mr. Lindh supported his son's new beliefs, even after he dropped out of high school to study at a local mosque, even when he made repeated trips to Yemen and Pakistan, ostensibly to study religion. But Mr. Walker had not just been studying Arabic language and interpretations of the Koran. Impressed with Afghanistan's fundamentalist movements during a visit, he joined the Taliban's elite foreign corps The last his parents had heard, Mr. Walker was studying the Koran in Bannu, Pakistan. Then he appeared on the television news. "I was a student in Pakistan, studying Islam and came into contact with many people connected with Taliban," Mr. Walker said in a TV interview yesterday. He was being held by U.S. forces in northern Afghanistan, with gunshot wounds to both legs. Mr. Walker said he had become a "jihadi" and he was fighting for a pure Islamic state. He told reporters he had fought in Kashmir before joining the Taliban. This is all more than a little surprising for his mother, who watched it all on TV in California. She believes that her son must have been out of his senses. "If he got involved with the Taliban he must have been brainwashed," she said. It is unclear where Mr. Walker's fate lies. As a U.S. citizen fighting with an enemy in war, he could be charged with treason, which carries a maximum penalty of death. His parents just want to see their errant son. While they say they have no sympathy for the cause he has apparently embraced, they still say they are impressed with his dedication to Islam and his scholarly prowess. "I'm proud of John," Mr. Lindh said yesterday. "He's a really good boy. A really sweet boy." [/QB][/QUOTE]
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