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Afghan and international troops launched a desperate hunt Saturday for more than 1,100 prisoners NATO said escaped a jail in Afghanistan when Taliban rebels blasted it open.
The Taliban said 400 of its own fighters escaped when the rebels attacked the facility in the southern city of Kandahar late Friday with suicide bombs before shooting the guards.
Afghan authorities put the number of prisoners who fled one of the country's biggest jails at 886, more than 380 of whom were Taliban.
The rebels said they spent two months planning the attack, which deputy justice minister Mohammad Qasim Hashimzai said was their most sophisticated yet.
"A massive operation is underway to find the escaped inmates. The Afghan security forces are searching for them within the city and along the main and secondary roads," Hashimzai said in the capital, Kabul.
"Afghanistan national security forces and ISAF forces have cordoned off the area to re-establish security and recapture the escapees," General Carlos Branco, a spokesman for NATO's International Security Assistance Force said. "More than 1,100 prisoners were able to escape."
Six of the escapees were recaptured during operations by security forces in villages outside Kandahar, a senior official said.
"Six of the escapees have been recaptured," deputy interior minister Munir Mangal, who flew to the troubled city after the incident, told a news conference.
Amir Mohammad Jamshid, the head of prisons at the ministry of justice, told the same news conference in Kandahar that some "important Taliban" were among those who escaped and the hunt was ongoing.
A Taliban spokesman, Yousuf Ahmadi, earlier said the rebels used suicide bombs and detonated a bomb-laden water tanker in the attack.
"First we exploded two suicide attacks and then our mujahedeen (holy warriors) riding motorcycles entered the prison and killed the remaining security guards.
"We successfully freed all prisoners, including our jailed Taliban and other prisoners," he said.
A statement posted on the Taliban website, signed by Ahmadi, said the rebels had planned the attack two months ago.
"Today we succeeded," it said, adding the raid was part of a militant operation -- Ibrat, which means Lesson -- which the rebels declared at the beginning of this year.
Large numbers of security forces including those of the U.S.-trained Afghan national army have been deployed to search vehicles.
It was not clear how many prison guards were killed in the raid, with Hashimzai saying seven had died and Ahmad Wali Karzai, the head of the Kandahar Provincial Council, putting the figure at 15.
Hashimzai said just 173 of the prison's 1,052 inmates had not escaped.
The prison raid is a blow to President Hamid Karzai, coming one day after world donors pledged $20 billion to rebuild Afghanistan at a conference in Paris but also called on him to strengthen the rule of law.
Despite the presence of about 70,000 international troops mainly operating under NATO, the insurgency aimed at toppling the U.S.-backed government in Kabul has gained pace in the past two years.
© Wire reports
14 Comments
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USAFdude
This would never have happened if bush had allowed us to finish the job in Afghanistan back in 2001.
Obama 2008-16.
some14some
Gone With the Wind...difficult to find them... back to Tora bora, Pakistan, Bangladesh or all the way to India. NATO= Not Available To Operations.
Sarge
Dude - How exactly would we have finished the job in Afghanistan back in 2001?
briantokyo
And this is what happens for not killing them upon capture: another 1100 terrorists out.
Jahdog
Bush/Cheney strategy: lose.
The outgoing top U.S. military commander in Afghanistan said Friday that attacks increased 50 percent in April in the country's eastern region, where U.S. troops primarily operate, as a spreading Taliban insurgency across the border in Pakistan fueled a surge in violence.
In a sober assessment, Gen. Dan K. McNeill, who departed June 3 after 16 months commanding NATO's International Security Assistance Force, or ISAF, said that although record levels of foreign and Afghan troops have constrained repeated Taliban offensives, stabilizing Afghanistan will be impossible without a more robust military campaign against insurgent havens in Pakistan...
McNeill declined to endorse a U.S.-funded program to train and equip Pakistan's Frontier Corps, which guards the border, questioning the effectiveness and loyalty of the tribally recruited guards...McNeill raised two instances in which the guards have shot and killed U.S. soldiers...
fldpi
Jahdog, when you copy excerps, leaving out everything that's not defamitory enough... :) , it's considered polite, (and non-plagiaristic), to site your source, which was I presume, the Washinton Post.
Especially when the only part you wrote yourself (2 words) makes no sense whatsoever to the contexts you carefully omitted.
2 original words don't make for "fair use" either, do they? :)
change
Briantokyo, I like your style. That would have even saved us/Afghans the trouble of guarding and feeding them. But I wonder, what about the at least 1% who were not terrorists?
briantokyo
Change, all Talibans are terrorists.
WilliB
Ah, the democratic islamic republic of Afghanistan is shaping up splendidly.
Triumvere
D'oh.
change
Brian, only if those guys had taliban IDs
Raja Kumar
Afghanistan getting richer with 20 billion coming in and 70,000 rich international soldiers. Afghanistan GDP now going up 20,000 million USD,that will provide plenty modern facilities for afghans/soldiers.
Shaping up splendidly both Islamic Taliban,taliban jail breakouts,taliban guerilla attacks and richer afghanistan.
Guess afghanistan will be ruled by karzai/ISAF in their strongholds. Taliban/mullahs will rule in their strongholds in afghanistan/pakistan.
Afghanistan has always been a nation, with factions wanting to fight foreign supported governments from time of russian colony rule. EU/UN colony rule, should not repeat mistakes of russian colony style rule. EU/UN must understand local political history/culture/languages, faith sensitivities and local causes, more deeply in afghanistan for better future afghanistan.
adaydream
george bush deserted Afghanistan a long time ago for Iraq. he made that a real and permanent decision on 3/19/2003. Since then he turned his back on the real and initiating threat and turned his attention to the war of choise and desire.
This wouldn't have happened if he'd kept the troops where we were. In Afghanistan, not Iraq. < :-)
USAFdude
adaydream - Amen, brother!