(Adds prisoner on death row for Musharraf assassination bid)
By Saud Mehsud
DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan, April 15 (Reuters) – Nearly 400
prisoners escaped from a jail in northwest Pakistan early on
Sunday after it was attacked by Islamist militants armed with
guns and rocket propelled grenades, a senior police official
said.
Some who fled the jail in the town of Bannu, near unruly
ethnic Pashtun tribal areas close to the Afghan border, were
militants, an intelligence official said.
One inmate who escaped was on death row for involvement in
an attempt to assassinate former Pakistani President Pervez
Musharraf, a second police official said.
Pakistan’s al Qaeda-linked Taliban movement, which has close
links to al Qaeda, said its fighters mounted the assault, which
triggered clashes. Several people were wounded.
“We have freed hundreds of our comrades in Bannu in this
attack. Several of our people have reached their destinations,
others are on their way,” a Taliban spokesman said.
The claim could not be immediately verified.
If the al Qaeda-linked Taliban freed the prisoners, it could
deal a psychological blow to Pakistani security forces following
government assertions that security crackdowns have weakened the
group.
While the Taliban in neighbouring Afghanistan have staged
several jailbreaks, such operations are rare in Pakistan, one of
the most unstable countries in the world.
Pakistan is seen as critical to U.S. efforts to stabilise
Afghanistan. Yet the South Asian nation faces its own major
security challenges.
The Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), or Taliban Movement of
Pakistan, is seen as the biggest threat, staging suicide
bombings and shootings in a drive to impose its harsh version of
Islam in the nuclear-armed country.
Major suicide bombings have eased in recent months, but it
is unclear whether that is due to military gains or a shift in
Taliban tactics.
A loose alliance of a dozen groups, the TTP began its battle
against the state in 2007, after a bloody army raid on
Islamabad’s Red Mosque, which was controlled by its allies.
The assault, ordered by Musharraf, was widely seen as the
event which sparked a full-blown Islamist militant challenge to
the state.
A police official identified one of the inmates who escaped
as a “dangerous prisoner” named Adnan Rasheed who took part in
one of the attempts to kill Musharraf.
“He was a mastermind in (one of the attacks) on Musharraf.
These people came for him and took another 383 people too,” the
official told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Police and intelligence officials said only some of the
prisoners who escaped were militants.
“Dozens of militants attacked Bannu’s central jail in the
early hours of the morning, and over 300 prisoners have
escaped,” senior police official Mir Sahib Jan told Reuters.
“There was intense gunfire, and rocket-propelled grenades
were also used.”
Paramilitary troops and security forces surrounded Bannu
Central Jail. Of a total 944 prisoners in the jail, 384 escaped,
said another police official.
Militants apparently targeted six jail blocks in the attack,
he said.
The Pakistani Taliban are closely linked with the Afghan
Taliban. They move back and forth across the porous border,
exchange intelligence, and provide shelter for each other in a
region U.S. President Barack Obama has described as “the most
dangerous place in the world”.
(Writing by Michael Georgy; Editing by Daniel Magnowski)
