It followed the intervention by United States-led coalition forces to overthrow the Taliban's Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, which had been harboring al-Qaeda operatives.

It took Northern Alliance fighters, assisted by British and American special forces and air support, six days to quell the revolt.

Among the surviving prisoners were two American citizens suspected of fighting with the Taliban: Yaser Esam Hamdi and John Walker Lindh.

At 03:00 on November 24, more than 400 Al Ansar "guest" foreign fighters (mostly from Arabic-speaking countries of the Middle East) also surrendered their weapons, including a large group that had arrived in a convoy one day earlier to a place 100 kilometres (62 mi) away from the agreed capitulation site, close to Mazar-i-Sharif.

[17] Attacking in a suicidal manner, revolting prisoners overran and killed Spann and several Afghan guards; they also appeared to be often much better trained than their Northern Alliance captors, many of whom were shocked and frightened by their enemies' display of skill and fanaticism.

[19] With Spann missing in the chaos, Tyson escaped to the northern and more secure part of the fortress, where he was trapped with a television crew from the German ARD network.

A 15-man rescue force was sent from the Turkish school, a base in Mazar-e-Sharif, made up of 9 Green Berets, and eight men from Z Squadron Special Boat Service.

From 16:00 until nightfall, despite Tyson's requests, the force directed two U.S. Navy F/A-18 Hornets to drop nine 500-pound GBU-12 Paveway II laser-guided bombs on the armory, which was serving as a base of fire for the entrenched prisoners.

At 11:00, a GBU-31 JDAM guided bomb, weighing 2,000 pounds (957 kg), was dropped from a U.S. Marine Corps F-18C Hornet, mistakenly hitting a friendly position after the pilot entered the wrong coordinates.

[24] On the 27 November, the third day of the fighting, the allied forces mounted a systematic assault supported by tanks and other armored vehicles, defeating a counterattack by the prisoners.

[18] Northern Alliance fighters fired and threw in grenades and explosives into the basement, and even poured oil in and tried to set it alight, but the resistance continued.

Shortly after the battle, an embedded journalist working for CNN, Robert Young Pelton, managed to identify the badly injured and hypothermic Lindh as an American.

In 2004, after three years of detention without trial (at first at Camp X-Ray, until his identity was discovered), the U.S. citizen Yaser Esam Hamdi won a landmark U.S. Supreme Court case, Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, which affirmed the right of U.S. citizens to habeas corpus and trial; he was released from United States custody without charges and was deported to his native Saudi Arabia.

[34] He was buried in Arlington National Cemetery with full military honors due to his prior service in the Marine Corps, as well as his time in the CIA.

[35] Spann's family visited the fortress after his death, and were told by Afghan doctors who were present on site at the time of the riot that they "thought Mike might run and retreat, but he held his position and fought using his AK rifle until out of ammo, and then drew and began firing his pistol", and that the only reason that they and several others were able to live was "because Mike stood his position and fought off the prisoners while enabling them the time to run to safety.

"[36] Due to the high number of prisoner casualties, and the use of massive firepower against them, the Northern Alliance and the foreign coalition forces were accused of breaking the Geneva Conventions by using disproportionate means.

[38] Abdulaziz al-Oshan, one of the detainees, later summarized the incident and told American authorities at Guantanamo Bay: "They called it an uprising and it's not; it's some kind of massacre.

"[27] Amnesty International called for an independent inquiry,[39] but the U.S. and British governments rejected this, arguing that the fierce and well-armed resistance of the uprising fully justified the use of airstrikes and heavy weapons against the revolting prisoners.