Qala-e-Gangi: Reconstruction of the beginning of the uprising

This post is one in a series on the lessons of the Afghan War.  The posts are indexed in this post of 02/20/06.

If one relies mainly on these documents (see previous post) about the prisoners' testimony, the following reconstruction of the events could reasonably be made:

The prisoner being held in the basement were brought out in groups to be questioned by the two Americans.  The uprising was begun with the explosion of a grenade near the entrance to the basement.  A fight then broke out as the prisoners charged Mike Spann and Dave Tyson.  Spann fired his AK-47 at the attackers, and Tyson with his pistol.  Tyson was able to escape with his life.  Spann was over powered and killed.  Guards at the fortress betan firing at the pirsoners, who retreated into the basement under fire.

The prisoners discussed in the previous post provided the following information on the beginning of the uprising:

G-164 says an explosion occurred befgore reporting any firing by the Americans (Spann and Tyson).

G-169 describes an explosion "in the basement" followed immediately by firing from the guards.  The man with the pistol on his hip "was jumped by an Arab or Pakistani male, but the armed man shot the prisoner." This is the account quoted by Serrano on the incident in which he suggests Spann possible sparked "the prison riot that claimed his life".

But G-169 clearly identifies the American with the assault rifle as the one who was killed (Spann). And his description is that the other American (Tysaon) was the one who shot an attacker with his pistol after the explosion,a nd after firign from the guards had commenced.  It is difficult to see how this document on G-169's interview could be read, as Serrano's article does, as indicating that a CIA man shooting an attacker may have triggered the riot.  Or that the man described as shooting this attacker in the head was Spann.  The copy I have of G-169's document clearly does not support such a reading.

G-172 says that he "heard an explosion and gunfire" that initiated the fighting.  Presumably this means the explosion happened first.  But his statement has little detail beyond that on the uprising.

G-174's statement is so heavily redacted it adds nothing to the story of the start of the uprising.

G-175's description indicates that the sound of a grenade explosion marked the outbreak of violence.  He also seems to indicate there was a two-minute interval between the grenade explosion and the first gunshots he heard.  Although he may have been referring to gunshots from the soldiers on the wall.

It's clear to me that the claim in Serrano's article that Spann or Tyson initiated the uprising with gunfire is not compatable with the testimony in these documents, which appear to be the ones on which he was relying, especially the document on prisoner G-169.

I'm going to end this post hear after having dealt with the specific question of that claim in Serrano's article (see previous posts) based on the evidence from the documents on the interrogation of those prisoners.  If any of my readers has seen additional documents of interrogations of prisoners who were held at Qala-e-Gangi at that time, or knows of less extensively redacted versions of those I've cited, I would appreciate it if you could let me know.

In the next post, I'm going to continue talking about the prison uprising and looking at some of its implications.