Tue, Sep 15, 2015 page6

• Taliban set hundreds free in raid on Afghan prison

  NATIONAL SECURITY: Four police officers were killed and seven wounded in the attack, in which 355 of the prison’s 436 inmates escaped, government officials said

  • AFP, GHAZNI, Afghanistan
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  Taliban insurgents wearing military uniforms set off a car bomb and stormed an Afghan prison yesterday, freeing hundreds of inmates and killing four policemen as they step up attacks despite a bitter leadership transition.

  The brazen attack in the eastern city of Ghazni was reminiscent of the last major Afghan jailbreak in 2011, when nearly 500 Taliban inmates escaped from a prison in the southern province of Kandahar.

  The raid, which left bulletriddled bodies at the entrance of the prison, comes as Afghan forces face their first fighting season against the insurgents without full NATO support.

  

  Afghan security personnel inspect a prison after an attack by Taliban militants in Ghazni, Afghanistan, yesterday.

  Photo: EPA

  “[At] around 2:30am six Taliban insurgents wearing military uniforms attacked Ghazni prison. First they detonated a car bomb in front of the gate, fired an RPG [rocket-propelled grenade] and then raided the prison,” Ghazni provincial Deputy Governor Mohammed Ali Ahmadi told reporters.

  The Afghan Ministry of the Interior said 355 of the prison’s 436 inmates escaped. Most were charged with crimes against national security and other criminal offenses.

  It added that four Afghan police officers were killed and seven wounded.

  The Taliban, who launched a countrywide summer offensive in late April, claimed responsibility.

  “This successful operation was carried out at 2am and continued for several hours. The jail was under Taliban control,” spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said in a statement.

  “In this operation, 400 of our innocent countrymen were freed ... and were taken to mujahidin-controlled areas,” the statement added.

  The Taliban are known to exaggerate and distort their public statements.

  In 2011, almost 500 Taliban fighters and commanders escaped from a prison in an audacious jailbreak in Kandahar province, in what the government described as a security “disaster.”

  The Taliban at the time said they sprang the inmates through a 1km-long tunnel that took five months to dig.

  Taliban insurgents are stepping up their summer offensive despite a simmering leadership succession dispute after the confirmation of the death of longtime chief Mullah Omar.

  Mullah Akhtar Mansoor, a trusted deputy of Omar, was named as the insurgents’ new chief in late July, but the power transition has been acrimonious.

  Afghan security forces, stretched on multiple fronts, are struggling to rein in the Taliban as NATO forces pull back from the front lines.

  NATO ended its combat mission in December last year and pulled out the bulk of its troops, although a 13,000-strong residual force remains for training and counterterrorism operations.

  In other bloodshed this month, unidentified attackers on Sept. 5 shot dead 13 minority Shiite Hazaras after dragging them out of their vehicles in the northern province of Balkh.

  The men were taken from two vehicles in a rare fatal attack targeting ethnic minorities.

  Afghan President Ashraf Ghani the same day implored international donors for their continued support, saying the “wounded country” faced a host of security and economic challenges.

  Donors have pledged billions of dollars over the past decade to reconstruct the war-torn country.

  However, much of that money has been lost to corruption, which permeates nearly every public institution, hobbling development and sapping already overstretched state coffers.
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