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Qala-i-Jangi uprising

The late-November 2001 prisoner uprising at a fortress in northern Afghanistan during which CIA officer Mike Spann was killed; the event during which the American al-Qaeda figure John Walker Lindh was captured; among the first major firefights of the post-9/11 Afghan campaign.

The Qala-i-Jangi uprising was a prisoner revolt at the Qala-i-Jangi fortress in northern Afghanistan in late November 2001, during which Taliban and al-Qaeda prisoners — who had been captured by the Northern Alliance — overwhelmed their CIA and military interrogators. Central Intelligence Agency officer Mike Spann was killed in the uprising, becoming the first American killed in combat in Afghanistan after the September 11 attacks. The American al-Qaeda figure John Walker Lindh had just been captured at the same site and was present at the start of the uprising.[1][2][3]

Why the date mattered to a Senate investigation

When Kiriakou tried to establish whether CIA officers had been present at the loading of the containers at Dasht-i-Leili, the uprising gave him his one certainty about American presence. “I know CIA officers were present 20 miles away, because the box-up was the same day as the uprising at Qala-i-Jangi.”[4]

What he could not establish was the twenty miles in between — whether the two English-speaking men in blue jeans described by a witness at the container site were agency officers.[5][4]

See also

References

  1. Dalton Fischer Podcast, 2025-08-313:36:36 on YouTube · Transcript
  2. Dalton Fischer Podcast, 2025-08-313:37:09 on YouTube · Transcript
  3. Dalton Fischer Podcast, 2025-08-313:38:09 on YouTube · Transcript
  4. Reality Asserts Itself (Paul Jay), 2023-04-2520:07 on YouTube · Transcript
  5. Reality Asserts Itself (Paul Jay), 2023-04-2517:40 on YouTube · Transcript

Sourced from John Kiriakou's on-record public statements. See his profile for the full body of his interviews, podcast appearances, and short-form video.