Four prisoners with links to al-Qaeda being guarded by US troops escaped from a maximum-security prison in Baghdad and are still at large, US and Iraqi officials said on Thursday.
The breakout from Karkh Prison, formerly called Camp Cropper, is an embarrassment for the US military, which has handed over control of all of the detention facilities it used to run to the Iraqi government. However, at the request of the Iraqis, the US has retained custody over some of the most dangerous prisoners, including those with ties to terrorist groups or Saddam Hussein’s former regime.
US troops found two detainees attempting to escape from the compound on Wednesday evening, the military said in a statement.
When they conducted a sweep of the facility, they discovered that four other detainees were missing.
“US Forces-Iraq, Iraqi Security Forces and the [Iraqi] MoJ [Ministry of Justice] are working to apprehend these individuals,” said Major General Jerry Cannon, head of US detainee operations in Iraq. “This event is under investigation.”
There was no details on how the escape happened, who was to blame or who the people were that escaped.
An Iraqi military spokesman, Major General Qassim al-Moussawi, told reporters that the Americans informed them on Thursday morning that four Iraqis being held by the US had broken out of the facility, although it was not clear exactly when or how they escaped.
He said the men were linked to al-Qaeda and facing the death penalty.
The top US commander in Iraq, General Lloyd Austin, and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki discussed the prison break during a high-level meeting on Thursday, an official with knowledge of the meeting said.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter, said Austin apologized to al-Maliki and said the people responsible for the escape would be held accountable.
This is not the first time that prisoners have broken out of US-run detention facilities in Iraq; 11 Iraqis broke out of the US’ Camp Bucca in April 2005 although many were later recaptured. A month earlier US officials there discovered a 183m tunnel leading out of Camp Bucca.
In 2006, five detainees escaped from the Fort Suse Theater internment facility near Sulaimaniyah, 258km northeast of Baghdad; they were later apprehended by Kurdish security officials.
An Iraqi security official said troops cordoned off the area near the prison — including the Jihad neighborhood and the airport, where the facility is located, as part of the search for the fugitives. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
Jihad residents said there was an intense Iraqi military presence in the neighborhood and locals were banned from driving.
On July 15, the US military handed over about 1,500 prisoners to Iraqi authorities during the changing of the guard at Camp Cropper, but continued to hold on to about 200 detainees at the request of the Iraqi government. They are kept in a separate part of the prison dubbed Compound 5 and guarded by US soldiers.
The prisoners who remain in US custody are “former regime elements, al-Qaeda operatives and very dangerous detainees,” Cannon said during a previous interview. He said they would eventually be handed over to the Iraqi government before US forces pull out of the country entirely by the end of next year.
The escape is the second since the US transferred custody of the detention facility to the Iraqis.
Just a week after the handover, four al-Qaeda-linked detainees awaiting trial on terrorism charges escaped from the Iraqi section of the prison.
The US$48 million complex has been used by US forces since April 2003 and can hold up to 4,000 prisoners. It’s now divided into six detainee compounds and is manned by 700 Iraqi corrections officers and about 100 support staff.
Meanwhile, gunmen broke into the house of a prominent Sunni cleric and decapitated him before setting his body on fire, police officials said.
A spokesman for the Diyala police, Major Ghalib al-Karkhi, said the cleric ran a medical clinic in the area before becoming a preacher and treated wounded members of the local anti-al-Qaeda militia.
These militias as well as people who assist them have often been targeted by insurgents trying to seek revenge or to intimidate others from working with the organization.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility but al-Qaeda-linked groups have often beheaded their victims.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion