Past Al Qaeda/Taliban Prison Breaks

Hole in the floor: Afghan jailer Ghulam Dastager Mayaar points to the tunnel through which 500 prisoners escaped from Kandahar jail. The Daily Mail

Great Prison Breaks Of The War On Terror -- Foreign Policy

In the Middle East and Central Asia, when suspected militants go to jail, they don't necessarily stay there. This was very much in evidence this week when the Taliban built 1,000 feet of underground tunnels (shown above) to free nearly half the prisoners at the Sarposa prison in Kandahar. It was a brazen feat to be sure, though not even the largest break in the history of that prison.

That honor goes to the 2009 Taliban raid that freed nearly 1,200 prisoners from Sarposa, including 350 Taliban members. That break involved two truck bombs crashing into the front gates followed a group of fighters armed with RGPs and automatic rifles. Security upgrades were made after the attack and an American military officer told reporters just this year that the only way to break in would be would be to “put a nuke on a motorcycle.” Or, you know, build a really long tunnel -- a method that was a pop culture cliché by 1963.

Here are a few more notable great escapes of the war on

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My Comment: This last break-out is a colossal security failure .... but I will bet that in the end .... no one is going to be disciplined for it.

How Taliban Sprang 450 Terrorists From Kandahar's Sarposa Prison In Afghanistan

Kandahar Prison

From The Telegraph:

With the latest outrage, the insurgency has shown that its ability to stage 'spectaculars' is undiminished by setbacks in the field

Overlooking the dusty road into one of Afghanistan's most lawless cities, the newly-painted guard towers of ­Kandahar's Sarposa prison are supposed to be a reminder to local people of how justice has finally come to town.

In recent years, coalition ­officials have spent millions turning the 60-year-old building into a showcase facility for Afghanistan's new government, issuing guards with crisp new uniforms and giving them lessons on how to treat their charges humanely.

Rather less attention, however, seems to have been spent on the jail's most basic function – security.

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More News on the Afghan Escape From Other Sources:
Afghan prison attack stirs tensions with Pakistan -- Christian Science Monitor
Karzai Threatens to Send Soldiers Into Pakistan -- New York Times
Investigation into mass escape starts -- Canada.com
Kandahar locked down after Taliban's dramatic prison raid -- The Independent

My Comment: This escape will have long term implications. Many people .... civilians and soldiers .... are going to die because of this. On the battlefield, prisoners are not going to be treated well, and payback against our Afghan allies will increase.

On a personal note, I was surprised to learn that there were only 15 guards at the facility that Friday night. You would think with over 1200 prisoners, many of them extremely dangerous, you would have at least a hundred if not more guards at any time.