Afghan Prison Riots Resume

Police fired at inmates trying to push down a gate at Kabul's main jail as about 2,000 prisoners resumed rioting Tuesday after a 24-hour pause in violence. One inmate died and three were wounded in the renewed fighting, police said.

The clashes at Policharki Prison restarted after negotiations to end the rebellion broke down, said Abdul Halik, a police commander in the prison. He said authorities had urged the prisoners to move into a different wing of the jail but the inmates refused.

"The prisoners have tried to break down the door to their block and the police opened fire," Halik said.

He said the prisoners then retreated inside the building. Even if the rioting inmates had managed to flee their block, they would still have been inside the prison compound and a tall wall would have prevented them from escaping outside.

Police have blamed about 350 Taliban and al Qaeda detainees for inciting the riot.

A purported spokesman for the prisoners, who identified himself only by the name Maqsodi, told The Associated Press by mobile phone from inside the jail that the prisoners refused to move because living conditions were no better in the new block.

The prison was built in the 1970s and is notorious for harsh and crowded conditions.

The rioting erupted late Saturday after prisoners refused to put on new uniforms, delivered in response to a breakout last month by seven Taliban inmates who had disguised themselves as visitors.

On Monday, a government negotiator said four inmates had died and 38 were wounded in the standoff. But that toll did not include the casualties reported by police on Tuesday.

Seventeen seriously wounded prisoners were rushed to a hospital earlier Tuesday along with the bodies of four of the dead after the prisoners agreed to halt the violence temporarily, said Gen. Zamarai, the Afghan army commander in charge of security at the jail.

Authorities restored supplies of water, electricity and food to the prisoners late Monday when negotiations appeared to be progressing. A tanker truck carrying water and another vehicle loaded with potatoes and rice were seen driving into the compound on the outskirts of the capital, Kabul.

The supplies were withheld from the roughly 2,000 prisoners for about a day. About 70 women are among the prisoners and about 70 children live with them.

Authorities have deployed hundreds of police and soldiers around the prison and have threatened to storm it, though they have said they would like to solve the problem peacefully.

The prisoners are believed to be armed with small knives and clubs fashioned from wrecked furniture, but do not have guns.

The prisoners have made a range of demands, including a general amnesty for an unspecified number of inmates, according to Sibghatullah Mujaddedi, the chief government negotiator.

Maqsodi, the purported spokesman for the prisoners, said they are also demanding retrials, claiming many of them are innocent while others were sentenced to excessive prison terms.

Outside the jail Tuesday, dozens of relatives of inmates pleaded with guards for news. Some women beat the ground as their children wailed, fearful that their loved ones may be among those killed.

"Oh, my son, are you alive?" Zubaida Gul, 60, cried at the feet of some guards. "Your family needs you."

Another woman said she was afraid for her brother, Abdul Baseer, a convicted murderer, because conditions in the prison were terrible.

"This is not a jail, it's a cemetery," said the woman, who gave her name only as Mariam. "No one has any rights once they've gone inside. I doubt I will ever see him again."

She said the international community has an obligation to improve conditions at the prison.

Some of the prison blocks are being renovated ahead of the expected arrival of some 110 Afghan terror suspects later this year from the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, but there has been little work on the rest of the facility.