Taliban militants wearing police
uniform have launched an assault on a prison in Pakistan, with reports that some
prisoners have escaped.
The attack on the jail in the north-western 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.
A curfew was imposed in the town and operations are continuing to clear the militants from the prison.
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 told the Associated Press.
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.
Mr Jadoon was quoted as saying that more than 200 prisoners had escaped, six of whom were later re-arrested by police.
He told the Pakistani ARY TV channel that militants had planted dozens of explosive devices in the jail and that 14 of them had so far been defused.
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.
No comments:
Post a Comment