The Soviet experience in and leaving Afghanistan

[Stan]

The Moscow Times quotes a BBC report, "An underground prison dating back to the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan has been found on the northern outskirts of Kabul."

"This is a big mass grave from the Russian days," said General Ali Shah Paktiwal, a senior police official, the BBC reported.

The Defense Ministry could not be reached for comment Friday afternoon. But retired general Makhmud Gareyev, who served as senior military adviser to the Afghan government from 1989 to 1992, told Interfax on Friday that the BBC report was "disinformation."

"Maintaining underground prisons is a tradition of the mujahedeen," Gareyev told Interfax.

Paktiwal, the Afghan police official, told the BBC that the prison was located at a base that had belonged to the country's communist-era defense ministry.

"There are at least 15 rooms full of dead bodies," he said, adding that more rooms could still be discovered underground, the BBC reported.

In 2006, NATO-led forces found a mass grave in Afghanistan that was also believed to contain victims of the country's communist government. Some 2,000 bodies were found near the notorious Pul-e-Charkhi prison east of Kabul.