Hundreds tunnel out of Afghan prison

Associated Press

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan

During the long Afghan winter, Taliban insurgents were apparently busy underground.

The militants say they spent more than five months building a 1,050-foot tunnel to the main prison in southern Afghanistan, bypassing government checkpoints, watch towers and concrete barriers topped with razor wire.

The diggers finally poked through Sunday and spent 41/2 hours ferrying away more than 480 inmates without a shot being fired, according to the Taliban and Afghan officials. Most of the prisoners were Taliban militants.

Accounts of the prison break suggest collusion with prison guards, officials or both.

After a recent wave of assassinations here, the breakout underscores the weakness of the Afghan government in the south despite an influx of international troops, funding and advisers.

Officials at Sarposa prison in Kandahar city, the one-time Taliban capital, say they discovered the breach about 4 a.m. Monday, a half-hour after the Taliban say they had gotten all the prisoners safely to a house at the other end of the tunnel.