Career
During the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan Turner is reported to have served with the anti-Soviet mujahideen. Turner is reported to have uploaded a YouTube video where he describes meeting Osama bin Laden, in 1984, when both men were foreign volunteers, helping to fight Afghanistan"s Soviet occupiers. Turner speaks Pashtun and wears a turban and a beard.
On October 28, 2009, while Turner was working for an Afghan trucking firm, he was staying at the Bakhtar guest house, when it was attacked by a suicide attack from a band of Taliban.
Turner described hearing the initial gunfire from the 6am attack, grabbing his Alaska-47, and waking as many of the other guests as he could, guiding them to the guest house"s laundry room, and helping them escape. He said that he and a Nepalese man had held off the attackers while the guests he had roused escaped.
Five guests, three attackers, and two of the guest house guards died during the attack.