29 dead, more than 300 prisoners at large as Afghanistan prison gets attacked

REUTERS: At least 29 people were killed and scores of others were injured when Daesh fighters attacked a prison in Jalalabad and freed close to 300 prisoners, officials said.

More than 300 prisoners were at large, Attaullah Khugyani, spokesman for the governor of Nangarhar province, said. Of the 1,793 prisoners, more than 1,025 had tried to escape and been recaptured and 430 had remained inside.

“The rest are missing,” he said.

After detonating a car bomb at the entrance on Sunday evening, IS gunmen overran the prison where many IS militants captured during a campaign in the past month were being held, along with Taliban fighters and common criminals.

Mohammad Idres, one of the prisoners trapped inside and contacted by cellphone, said he could see could around four bodies on the ground outside.

“We are very hungry, it’s very hot and we don’t have water,” he told Reuters.

“Sometimes it is quiet and then firing starts,” he said. “The security forces cannot seem to advance because the attackers hold strategic points, including the watchtowers.”

IS claimed responsibility for the attack, which came a day after the Afghan intelligence agency said special forces had killed a senior IS commander near Jalalabad, the provincial capital of Nangarhar.

The move by the banned militant outfit comes at a crucial time when intra-Afghanistan talks are proceeding forward after 19 years of bloodshed between the government and the Taliban.

On Sunday, President Ashraf Ghani ordered the government to free hundreds of Taliban prisoners.