Apr. 25., 2011. - Taliban tunnels at least 480 out of Afghan prison

[SgtJim]

BBC video: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-13185229



KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AFP) – Almost 500 Taliban fighters and commanders escaped from a prison in an audacious jailbreak in southern Afghanistan which the government admitted Monday was a security "disaster".

The Taliban said it sprung the inmates out of the prison in Kandahar through a one-kilometre tunnel that took five months to dig, and claimed all those who escaped belonged to the militia, including over 100 commanders.

The daring breakout in the Taliban's heartland, the second from the prison in three years, threatens to undermine recent gains claimed by NATO forces in the area after a US-led troop surge, just as the annual fighting season begins.

It is also a major embarrassment for Afghan forces who are due to take on greater responsibility for security in their country ahead of the planned withdrawal of foreign combat troops in 2014.

Tooryalai Wesa, the governor of Kandahar, said that 488 people had escaped, the vast majority of whom were thought to be Taliban.

He added at a press conference that intelligence cells and security forces at the prison had "failed in their duties" in not detecting the tunnel, which he later said was a kilometre long.

A total of 26 inmates have now been recaptured and two others were shot dead after resisting arrest by security forces near Kandahar city, Wesa added.

The escapees, who represent over a third of the prison's total population, came from its political section.

Kandahar prison is the largest in southern Afghanistan and holds Taliban captured on nearby battlefields, which are among the country's bloodiest.

An AFP reporter who visited Kandahar prison after the jailbreak said journalists were shown a hole in a cell about half a metre wide and three metres deep which officials said was the mouth of the tunnel.

Clothes and personal belongings were scattered nearby, apparently abandoned by inmates before they made their escape.

Confirming the breakout, President Hamid Karzai's spokesman Waheed Omer described it as a "disaster".

"This is a blow, it's something that should not have happened," he said.

"We're looking into finding out what exactly happened and what's being done to compensate for the disaster that happened in Kandahar."

Taliban spokesman Yousuf Ahmadi said the Islamist militants were responsible for the mass breakout, which took place over several hours.

A separate Taliban statement said they had started digging the tunnel from a nearby safe house five months ago and that it passed under several government checkpoints and a major highway.

Prisoners at the jail are kept in communal cells and have some freedom of movement.

"They started getting out of the prison at 11:00 pm (1830 GMT) last night and by early morning today, 541 prisoners escaped the prison," Ahmadi said.

"They all have made it safe to our centres and there was no fighting."

Foreign forces say they made significant gains in Kandahar during 2010 amid a US troop surge announced the previous year which focused on the south.

But the jailbreak could provide the Taliban with a fresh injection of commanders and fighters at the start of this year's fighting season, which Western officials see as a critical test of their efforts to end the war.

In 2008, around 1,000 prisoners including members of the Taliban escaped from the same jail after militants used a truck bomb to blow open the gates.

The jailbreak is the second major security breach in Afghanistan in a week. Last Monday, three soldiers died when an attacker dressed in a military uniform got inside the defence ministry in Kabul.

And 10 days ago, the Kandahar police chief was killed by a Taliban suicide bomber dressed in police uniform, dealing another serious blow to security in the province.

Western analysts say Afghanistan's prison and justice system is riddled with corruption.

In a report last November, the International Crisis Group said the Afghan justice system was "in a catastrophic state of disrepair" and that most Afghans thought justice institutions were the most corrupt in the country.

There are around 130,000 international troops in Afghanistan, two-thirds of them from the United States, battling the Taliban and other insurgents.

Limited withdrawals from seven relatively peaceful areas are due to start in July ahead of the planned end of foreign combat operations in 2014.

[conorcolt]

was the Tunnel King involved?

[cormack]

How did they move from cell to cell to get to the one with the escape hole? surely 300 of them were not allowed to move around freely.

[Benda]

Hearing this makes me feel sick.

Honestly, i find it hard to believe that such a large scale operation went on unnoticed or unassisted by the prison officials (again).

[cormack]

It does make you sick, How many american soldiers died putting these terrorists behind bars? And how many more will die fighting these 500 taliban all over again.

[CrookedSmirk]

Good job, ANA. Some ally you fuckers are.

[SgtJim]

On Tuesday, local officials said a joint Afghan and NATO force:

65 recaptured some of the escapees.

Afghanistan's justice minister, Abibullah Ghalab, said it was likely that the prisoners escaped with help from guards or officials inside the jail.

[DevilDog812]

im just waiting for the news that they forgot to cover up the hole and put them back in the same cell :D

[SgtJim]

some interest update:

By Aimal Yaqoubi and Molly Hennessy-Fiske, Los Angeles Times April 28, 2011




Reporting from Kabul, Afghanistan—
The great escape from Sarposa prison began with a knocking beneath the floor.

A 25-year-old Afghan recounted in a telephone interview Wednesday how three inmates at the prison in the southern city of Kandahar were expecting the knock. When it came about 11:30 p.m. Sunday, they knew what to do.

They knocked back.

Moments later, the floor gave way to reveal their escape route: a 1,050-foot tunnel, complete with lights and ventilation.

The Afghan was referred to Los Angeles Times reporters by a Taliban spokesman. Although his account could not be independently verified, his description of events and circumstances that night matched information released by Afghan authorities.

The account provided a look at how at least 488 inmates — more than a third of the prison population — made their dramatic escape in what the Taliban has hailed as a major victory. As of Wednesday, 75 of the prisoners had been caught and two killed, Afghan officials said. The incident has provoked international outrage at Afghan security forces' failure to protect the troubled prison, the site of previous insurgent attacks and escapes.

The Taliban fighter, who asked not to be identified, said he had served 1 1/2 years of a six-year sentence after he was captured during a fight with North Atlantic Treaty Organization forces. He had no hope of escape until a fellow inmate alerted him to the tunnel late Sunday.

He had been visiting inmates elsewhere in the prison — the cells were left unlocked at night while guards stayed at the main gate, he said — when the man told him about the tunnel and urged him to share the plot with the other 20 inmates in his cell.

"Tonight is our escape night," he said the man told him.

He stared into the mouth of the tunnel as armed insurgents emerged. Inside the tunnel, which appeared to be about 2 feet wide and 10 feet deep, insurgents had installed battery-powered lights about every 15 feet to guide those escaping on their way under guard towers and razor-wire-topped barrier walls, beneath a busy highway and around police checkpoints. Fresh air was piped in through a makeshift ventilation system that allowed inmates to travel along the tunnel for 4 1/2 hours.

The fleeing prisoners emerged in a mud house secured by Taliban organizers who the man said had planted land mines and set up ambush positions along escape routes nearby in case security forces discovered the tunnel before all the inmates had escaped from the prison's political wing.

But guards failed to raise the alarm until after the inmates had cleared the tunnel and disappeared. No shots were fired. In fact, security forces had searched the house 2 1/2 months before without noticing the tunnel, Afghan officials later acknowledged.

Some inmates who reached the house caught rides in cars that were waiting outside, while others walked to a nearby village, the escapee said. Taliban forces did not strong-arm them, he said.

"They told us that we are free, we can go anywhere we want," he said.

The escapee did not disclose where he was hiding or how he got there. But he said he had received help, and not just from the Taliban.

"Many people in the city of Kandahar and also from surrounding villages helped us a lot," he said. "People who didn't even know us helped us with transportation and other things we needed."

Contrary to the suspicions of some investigators, the man said inmates did not receive any help from Sarposa prison guards or other staff members in making their escape.

He rejected reports that some of his brethren had been recaptured and killed, and crowed about the escape as an undisputed victory for Taliban forces.

"Our operation embarrassed the Kandahar authorities, the foreigners and the central government. The government had no idea about our escape until we broke the news," he said.

Taliban officials had claimed that among those who escaped were 106 commanders who could help lead future fights. With Afghanistan's spring fighting season heating up, the man said he would willingly join them.

"My friends and I are ready to sacrifice ourselves in the fight against the foreigners."

[DevilDog812]

i hope this means no more taking prisoners