^[1] KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN: One night I walked out of my house to go pray at the mosque. It was around 8:30 p.m. and the streets were dark. A few shops were still open and inside them I could see people chatting and drinking tea.

I crossed the street and entered the Mahbas Masjid. I started to pray along with 25 or 30 other people. Then, after the prayers, nearly everyone left.

I stayed a bit longer, standing outside the mosque, waiting for a friend to come out. But he didn’t come so I went home.

Later that night I was watching TV with my family when we heard the sound of gunfire. We didn’t think much of it because we are used to hearing it from time to time, especially at night. Then we heard someone outside scream: “Hey, shoot that man, shoot him now!”

I heard what sounded like the firing a rocket-propelled grenade and immediately after that a massive explosion that shattered our windows and filled our room with smoke and dust.

All the children in the house were scared and some of them even started to cry. The elders, though, sat calmly and looked at each other waiting to see what would happen next.

We heard rocket-propelled grenades wiz by and the crackle of automatic rifles. Stepping over shards of glass, we all positioned ourselves with our backs against the wall to avoid being hit by bullets or shrapnel coming in from the broken windows. The fighting went on for several minutes and then we started to hear the voices of men screaming things like: “Congratulations! You are free! You are free now!”

At this point, nobody in my house had the faintest idea of what was going on. But later that night we found out that the Taliban had stormed Sarposa prison to free their comrades.

It was June 13th, 2008. That night about 1,000 prisoners escaped from Sarposa, including several hundred Taliban.