American Talib Describes Training

Dizzy from morphine and weary from battle, American Taliban fighter John Walker Lindh said in an interview soon after his capture that he had been a part of Ansar, the Arab fighters funded by Osama bin Laden who fought for the Taliban.

He also said he had attended an Ansar training camp.

The interview was done Dec. 2 by a CNN reporter and was aired in its entirety for the first time Wednesday.

Lindh said the Taliban fighters were organized in different branches based on ethnic groups. At first, he stayed with Taliban fighters from Pakistan, where he had been studying at a religious school.

But then Lindh was put with the group of Arab fighters who were funded by Bin Laden because he spoke Arabic.

“Originally I came with Pakistanis,” Lindh said. “They sent me to the Arabs.”

What Lindh did while traveling with Taliban fighters in Afghanistan could play a key role in what charges he might face in the United States.

Lindh, a 20-year-old American from San Anselmo, Calif., also defended the Taliban fighters in Afghanistan, saying the Koran permits Muslims to kill other Muslims in cases of holy war.

“That is a question that is addressed in the Koran itself,” Lindh told CNN. “In certain cases Muslims by necessity can kill and . . . there are situations in which a Muslim can be killed” by other Muslims.

Referring to “jihad,” the Islamic word for holy war, he said, “It’s exactly what I thought it would be.”

Asked if it was the right cause, he said, “Definitely.”

Lindh, who sometimes uses his mother’s last name of Walker, was found holed up with captured Taliban fighters last month after anti-Taliban forces quelled a prison uprising in northern Afghanistan.

He was taken into custody by American forces and flown to the assault ship Peleliu, off the coast of Pakistan.

White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said Wednesday that President Bush will make a decision about Lindh once Justice Department and Pentagon officials finish reviewing his case.