Roj Bash Kurdistan

BBC News

Taliban militants wearing police uniform have launched an assault on a prison in north-west Pakistan.

The attack on the jail in the town of Dera Ismail Khan began with several explosions at around midnight on Monday.

Gunmen then opened fire with rocket-propelled grenades and machine-guns, police chief Sohail Khalid said.

The prison houses hundreds of Taliban and militants from banned groups. The fighting is still going on.

The attackers were chanting "God is great" and "Long live the Taliban," officials told the Associated Press.

A local resident told the agency that the initial blast was so loud that "it rattled every house in the neighbourhood".

Pakistani Taliban spokesman Shahidullah Shahid has claimed responsibility for the attack. He said around 300 prisoners had been freed.

"The Taliban have loudspeakers and they are calling the names of their friends," the town's civil commissioner, Mushtaq Jadoon, said.

Officials said that authorities had been aware of a threat to attack the prison in recent weeks.

Provincial prisons chief Khalid Abbas said he was not sure if any of the jail's 40 "high-profile" prisoners had escaped.

Hundreds of inmates were freed in an assault on a prison in Bannu in northern Pakistan in April last year.

Dera Ismail Khan is the main city in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province, in Pakistan's restive, mountainous tribal region.

Monday night's violence comes hours before Pakistani politicians are expected to choose the country's new president.

The replacement for Asif Ali Zardari will be elected on Tuesday by the members of both houses of parliament and the four provincial assemblies.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-23493323

BBC News

Taliban militants have freed 248 prisoners in an assault on a prison in north-west Pakistan, officials say.



Militants armed with automatic weapons, rocket-propelled grenades, mortars and bombs blasted down the walls of the jail in the town of Dera Ismail Khan and streamed inside, reports said.

An hours-long gun battle followed into the early hours of Tuesday morning. At least 13 died, including six police.

Correspondents say it is a huge embarrassment for authorities.

The attack was similar to an assault on a prison in nearby Bannu in April last year, in which almost 400 prisoners were freed.

Reports also suggest intelligence had warned of an impending attempt on the jail two weeks ago.

This latest assault demonstrates the weakness of the Pakistani state, says the BBC's Shahzeb Jillani in Karachi.

The state appears not to have the capacity, and some would say the will, to rein in hardened militants, he says.

Police uniforms

The attack in the town of Dera Ismail Khan began with huge explosions at around midnight on Monday (15:00 GMT).

Up to 100 attackers, some wearing police uniforms, bombarded the prison with rockets and mortars before going inside.

The town's civil commissioner, Mushtaq Jadoon, said attackers used loudhailers to call the names of particular inmates.

An ensuing gun battle raged for three or four hours.

Katherine Houreld, a correspondent for Reuters news agency, told the BBC it had been a "very sophisticated attack - they blew the electricity line, they breached the walls and they set ambushes for reinforcements".

The town's prison is a century old and is said not to have been designed for high-security inmates, but houses hundreds of Taliban fighters and militants from other banned groups.

Mr Jadoon said 30 "hardened militants", who had been jailed for their involvement in major attacks or suicide bombings, were among those freed.

He was also quoted as saying that militants had taken away six women, five of them inmates and the other a police officer.

An unnamed official told AFP news agency that jail records and an office had also been torched.

The town is in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province, next to Pakistan's mountainous tribal region.


Scenes from inside the jail showed quarters charred from the heavily armed militants' bombs and grenades.

Among the inmates freed were two local Taliban commanders, Abdul Hakim and Haji Ilyas.

Also released is a sectarian militant, Waleed Akbar, the principle suspect in last year's attacks on Shia mourners in Dera Ismail Khan during the Shia mourning month of Moharram.

Fourteen fugitives were later re-arrested by police, Mr Jadoon said.

A curfew has now been imposed on Dera Ismail Khan as police hunt for the remaining escaped prisoners, but correspondents say this will be a difficult task as they flee into tribal areas.

Mr Jadoon told a local TV station that militants had booby-trapped the building with explosive devices, which had now been defused.

Attack 'threats'

A local resident told the agency that the initial blast was so loud that "it rattled every house in the neighbourhood".

The attackers were chanting "God is great" and "Long live the Taliban", officials said.

Pakistani Taliban spokesman Shahidullah Shahid said his group carried out the attack. He said about 300 prisoners had been freed.

The authorities are reported to have received intelligence about an impending attack two weeks ago, but prison officials said they did not expect it to come so soon.

A Taliban spokesman said one of their commanders freed in an assault on a prison in Bannu in northern Pakistan in April last year played a key role in the latest jailbreak.

Correspondents say the authorities will face questions about how militants were able to stage a virtually identical attack in Dera Ismail Khan.

Monday night's violence came hours before Pakistani politicians were to choose the country's new president.

The replacement for Asif Ali Zardari is being elected by the members of both houses of parliament and the four provincial assemblies.

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For those readers who do not understand the connection between Taliban in Pakistan and the Taliban Jihadists fighting in places such as Syria - many of the Jihadists are actually trained in the Taliban training camps of Pakistan

Achmed the famous terrorists was himself trained in such a camp