Inmates escape Afghan prison, Taliban attack
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AP) - June 13, 2008 The complex attack included a truck bombing at the main gate, a
suicide bomber who struck a back wall and rockets fired from
outside, setting of a series of explosions that rattled Kandahar,
the country's second biggest city.
A Taliban spokesman, Qari Yousef Ahmadi, said 30 insurgents on
motorbikes and two suicide bombers attacked Sarposa Prison and
freed about 400 Taliban members.
Abdul Qabir, chief of the Sarposa Prison, also said hundreds of
prisoners escaped, but did not provide an exact figure. He said
some inmates stayed at the jail, which also held criminals.
Wali Karzai, the brother of President Hamid Karzai who is
president of Kandahar's provincial council, said the prison held
about 350 suspected Taliban fighters.
He said "all" the prisoners escaped, but also had no specific
number. "There is no one left," he said.
Early Saturday, police official Mohammad Jamal Khan said more
than 600 prisoners escaped. He said nine police were killed in the
attack and that 12 were wounded. Eight prisoners were also killed
during the assault, he said. More than 30 nearby shops were
damaged.
Kandahar was the Taliban's former stronghold and its province
has been the scene of fierce fighting the past two years between
insurgents and NATO troops, primarily from Canada and the United
States.
The prison attack came just a few hours after Defense Secretary
Robert Gates told his counterparts in Europe that NATO members need
to bolster their military effort in Afghanistan, where violence has
been escalating.
Dramatizing his report, Gates said that for the first time, the
monthly total of American and allied combat deaths in Afghanistan
had exceeded the toll in Iraq during May.
Qabir, the prison warden, said the assault began when a tanker
truck full of explosives detonated at the prison's main entrance,
wrecking the gate and a police post, killing all the officers
inside. He couldn't say how many police were killed.
Shortly after that, a suicide bomber on foot blasted a hole in
the back of the prison, Qabir said.
Witnesses reported that rockets were also fired at the prison
during a 30-minute battle that began around 9:30 p.m.
A shopkeeper who sells vegetables near the prison, Mohammad
Hiqmatullah, said he saw prisoners run out and disappear into
nearby pomegranate and grape groves.
Ahmadi, the Taliban spokesman, said militants had been planning
the assault for two months. "Today we succeeded," he said, adding
that the escaped prisoners were "going to their homes."
Officials with NATO's International Security Assistance Force
said they were aware of the attack but didn't yet have any details.
Last month, some 200 Taliban suspects at the prison ended a
weeklong hunger strike after a parliamentary delegation promised
that their cases would be reviewed.
Lawmaker Habibullah Jan said 47 of the prisoners had stitched
their mouths shut during the hunger strike in May. He said some of
the hunger strikers had been held without trial for more than two
years and others were given lengthy prison sentences after short
trials.
Earlier Friday, the separate U.S.-led military coalition said
airstrikes were called in to support ground troops fighting
insurgents in two Afghan provinces Thursday, killing more than 17
militants and a female civilian.
Separately, Afghan police said a Romanian soldier died in a
Taliban rocket attack on the country's main highway. NATO confirmed
the death of one of its soldiers, but declined to release the
nationality.
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Associated Press writers Noor Khan reported this story from
Kandahar and Amir Shah in Kabul.