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Father of US Taliban fighter pleads for mercy
The father of a young American who fought for the Taliban pleaded on Monday for the U.S. military to show mercy to his son. Describing his son as a `very sweet kid,` Frank Lindh said the 20-year-old converted from Catholicism to Islam when he was a high school student aged 16, traveling to Yemen the following year to learn Arabic.
The father of a young American who fought for the Taliban pleaded on Monday for the U.S. military to show mercy to his son. Describing his son as a "very sweet kid," Frank Lindh said the 20-year-old converted from Catholicism to Islam when he was a high school student aged 16, traveling to Yemen the following year to learn Arabic.
"He is certainly devoted to this religious conversion that he had to Islam," Lindh told CNN's "Larry King Live." His parents said their son was born in Washington in February 1981, the second of three children of a home health care worker Marily Walker and Lindh, a lawyer. The couple are now separated.
Named John Phillip Walker Lindh at birth, he later took his mother's last name and in Afghanistan was known as Abdul Hamid.
He spent the first 10 years of his life in the Washington suburbs of Maryland, moving to northern California with his parents in 1991. "I was a student in Pakistan, studying Islam and came into contact with many people connected with the Taliban," John Walker said in an interview with CNN 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."
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.
Rumors circulated on Monday that more Americans might be in the group of prisoners from the Qala-i-Jang fortress near Mazar-i-Sharif, where Walker was captured after a bloody prison uprising that left one American CIA operative and hundreds of Taliban captives dead. "There may be two or three others in that general population of prisoners," a U.S. source said on condition of anonymity. Walker's parents said they were shocked by their son's support for the Taliban and Osama bin Laden, chief suspect in the Sept. 11 suicide plane attacks on the United States.
"If he got involved with the Taliban, he must have been brainwashed," his mother 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 had contacted officials at the U.S. State Department and the U.S. Embassy in Pakistan but had received no information.
Pentagon officials said it had not yet been defined if Walker was considered under arrest or a prisoner of war. His parents vowed to stand by their son and said they had hired lawyers to take up his case.
Referring to his son's study of languages and dedication to religious studies, Lindh said, "I'm proud of John. He's a really good boy. A really sweet boy."
Asked about reports that his son had said he supported the Sept. 11 attacks, Lindh said he did not think his son "was thinking straight at that moment" because of his ordeal in the prison uprising.
Bureau Report
"He is certainly devoted to this religious conversion that he had to Islam," Lindh told CNN's "Larry King Live." His parents said their son was born in Washington in February 1981, the second of three children of a home health care worker Marily Walker and Lindh, a lawyer. The couple are now separated.
Named John Phillip Walker Lindh at birth, he later took his mother's last name and in Afghanistan was known as Abdul Hamid.
He spent the first 10 years of his life in the Washington suburbs of Maryland, moving to northern California with his parents in 1991. "I was a student in Pakistan, studying Islam and came into contact with many people connected with the Taliban," John Walker said in an interview with CNN 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."
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.
Rumors circulated on Monday that more Americans might be in the group of prisoners from the Qala-i-Jang fortress near Mazar-i-Sharif, where Walker was captured after a bloody prison uprising that left one American CIA operative and hundreds of Taliban captives dead. "There may be two or three others in that general population of prisoners," a U.S. source said on condition of anonymity. Walker's parents said they were shocked by their son's support for the Taliban and Osama bin Laden, chief suspect in the Sept. 11 suicide plane attacks on the United States.
"If he got involved with the Taliban, he must have been brainwashed," his mother 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 had contacted officials at the U.S. State Department and the U.S. Embassy in Pakistan but had received no information.
Pentagon officials said it had not yet been defined if Walker was considered under arrest or a prisoner of war. His parents vowed to stand by their son and said they had hired lawyers to take up his case.
Referring to his son's study of languages and dedication to religious studies, Lindh said, "I'm proud of John. He's a really good boy. A really sweet boy."
Asked about reports that his son had said he supported the Sept. 11 attacks, Lindh said he did not think his son "was thinking straight at that moment" because of his ordeal in the prison uprising.
Bureau Report