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Afghanistan: Researched and Compiled by the Refugee Documentation Centre of Ireland on 20 April 2009

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Afghanistan: Researched and Compiled by the Refugee Documentation Centre of Ireland on 20 April 2009 Afghanistan: Researched and compiled by the Refugee Documentation Centre of Ireland on 20 April 2009 Information on Taliban attack on Sarpoza Prison on 13 June 2008, which resulted in all prisoners escaping. According to London Free Press (Ontario) it says: “Canadian forces rushed into Kandahar city last night in response to a major insurgent attack on the Afghan prison at the heart of Canada's detainee scandal. Insurgents used explosives and rockets in the assault that blew open the walls of Sarapoza prison and freed hundreds of inmates, including Taliban militants. "We have troops on the scene right now," Canadian military spokesperson Jay Janszen told reporters at Kandahar Airfield, the main NATO base in the region. "We have established a security perimeter in the vicinity of the prison." Janszen could not say how many insurgents were on the loose. "I don't have details at this time about exactly who is in that prison," he said. Troops from NATO's International Security Assistance Force, or ISAF, are working with Afghan government forces to deal with the attack. Canada has about 2,500 troops in Afghanistan as part of ISAF. Afghan officials said militants carried out a suicide car bombing and fired rockets in the attack, killing police and freeing hundreds of prisoners. The Taliban claimed responsibility, saying 30 insurgents on motorbikes and two suicide bombers attacked the prison, used to hold both common criminals and Taliban militants. Shortly after the attack, Canadian tanks were reported rumbling into the city and helicopters were heard flying over Kandahar Airfield as the tempo of military activities picked up. Taliban spokesperson, Qari Yousef Ahmadi, said hundreds of Taliban prisoners were freed in the assault. The complex attack began when a tanker truck full of explosives detonated at the prison's main gate, said Abdul Qabir, chief of Kandahar's Sarpoza Prison. Shortly after that, a suicide bomber on foot blasted a hole in the back of the prison. Qabir said hundreds of prisoners escaped, though some stayed behind. However, Wali Karzai, the brother of President Hamid Karzai and the president of Kandahar's provincial council, said all prisoners had escaped. Neither official provided an exact figure.” (London Free Press (Ontario) (14 June 2008) Kandahar prison attacked; Afghanistan: It's unclear how many prisoners ran free after a Sarapoza prison was blown up by insurgents) According to a report from Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty it notes: “A state of emergency has been declared in the province, and police and troops are on the streets with all residents ordered to stay in their homes. Kandahar Provincial Council head Ahmed Wali Karzai told RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan that 800-900 inmates of Sarposa prison are now on the run in the volatile province, which was a traditional Taliban stronghold. "No one knows the number exactly, but there were around 390 Taliban prisoners in that prison and around 600 or 700 more [who] were criminal prisoners. Two hundred prisoners are still here in the prison – the rest of them escaped," said Ahmed Wali Karzai, who is Afghan President Hamid Karzai's brother. He said many of the escaped Taliban were high-ranking field commanders who "were organizing suicide attacks." He ran off a list of names that included Mullah Kayom, Mullah Gulbari, Mullah Kayom, Khaled Agha, and "some others who were extremely important." (Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (14 June 2008) Afghanistan: Many ‘important’ Taliban among hundreds of prison escapees) It continues “A Taliban spokesman, Qari Yusof Ahmadi, confirmed that its fighters were behind the commando-style attack, carried out by at least one suicide bomber and other militants using small arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades. Afghan Deputy Justice Minister Mohammad Qasim Hashimzai said that NATO-led "ISAF forces [and] government security department officials are now checking the roads around Kandahar" and inspecting vehicles "to see if they can capture inmates [trying] to leave the city." At least 15 security guards were reported killed in the assault. Hashimzai said that around 10 p.m. "a suicide bomber, together with a truckload of ammunition and explosives," destroyed the prison gate before rockets were fired to demolish the top floor of one of the prison blocks to "open the way for the inmates to manage to escape." (ibid) According to a report from The Globe and Mail (Canada) it notes: “Stripped of his uniform and placed under investigation after last month's spectacular jailbreak, Kandahar's former police chief lashed out yesterday at what he described as Canada's failure to help capture the hundreds of prisoners who escaped the shattered prison. Sayed Agha Saqib, dining on a lavish meal of lamb and chicken at his home in Kandahar city last night, asked why Canadian soldiers did not chase the fugitives running away from Sarpoza prison on June 13. "My police didn't have modern weapons, and they didn't have night-vision goggles," Mr. Saqib said. "So why did you want us to go into those fields? It was the responsibility of NATO and the ANA [Afghan National Army]." A Canadian commander has said it was not his troops' responsibility to round up the confused mix of Taliban and criminals who straggled through the fields south of the prison in the hours after the jailbreak. The Canadians gave information about the fugitives' location to Mr. Saqib that night, saying it was a police matter. When daylight broke the next morning, Mr. Saqib said, his police searched the area near the prison but found no escapers. Afghan commandos also landed helicopters near a cluster of villages roughly 15 kilometres south of Sarpoza later in the day and conducted a sweep. But only three of about 400 Taliban suspects have been recaptured, two weeks after the jailbreak. More broadly, Mr. Saqib described the prison break as a military failure in the districts around Kandahar city. The raiding party of insurgents, which he estimated at 100 to 200 fighters, should never have been allowed to reach the city limits, he said. "Who came to release the prisoners?" he asked. "It was the Taliban. What is NATO doing here in Afghanistan? They are fighting the Taliban. So why didn't NATO and the ANA keep the Taliban away from the city?" Looking tired and wearing a few days grey stubble, the former career officer said he's finished with police work. Mr. Saqib said his government has "victimized" him and left him hunting for a job, unlike his predecessor, who was shuffled off to a less-prominent posting last year. His best option might be opening a private business in his home city of Jalalabad, he said. He also remains under investigation for his role in the jailbreak, along with two other senior security officials in Kandahar who were fired last week. A fourth official, prison warden Colonel Abdul Qadir, has been arrested. Mr. Saqib said the warden has strong links with tribal and political figures, and will likely escape prosecution. "He will use his connections and get free," he said. The former police chief blames Col. Qadir for slowing his response to the jailbreak. The first explosion was so loud that Mr. Saqib initially thought it was a bombing in the centre of the city, and he climbed to the roof of police headquarters to see whether any fires were burning nearby. He saw nothing but started getting reports from his outposts of a blast on the western edge of the city, near the jail. He immediately phoned Col. Qadir to ask about the situation, he said, but the warden told him he'd checked with the prison guards and everything was fine. Insurgents had attacked a fuel tanker on the highway near the jail, the warden told the police chief, but the prison was not damaged. "This was all part of a premeditated plan," the former chief says, hinting darkly at others officials' deals with the insurgents while denying any complicity himself. He paused to wash his hands after the evening meal, and talked about how such disasters might be avoided in future. The Afghan police need training, equipment and mentoring of the kind received by the national army, he said.” (The Globe and Mail (Canada) (4 July 2008) Shamed ex-police chief faults NATO in jailbread; Troops should have chased fugitives after Taliban raided Sarpoza prison, Kandahar’s former top officer says) Another article from The Globe and Mail (Canada) notes: “Canada's Chief of the Defence Staff said yesterday he regrets that intelligence services did not provide information that could have thwarted the well-organized prison break in Kandahar last weekend that freed hundreds of Taliban prisoners. "Obviously, we would have liked to have known so we could have pre-empted or helped, more accurately, the Afghans pre-empt that kind of thing," General Rick Hillier told reporters, after meeting with the House of Commons defence committee. "Clearly we did not. And so we just tend to sort of put our elbows down and get to work to make sure we try to get an even better perspective of what we think might occur in the future, so we can pro-actively pre-empt it in a variety of ways." The general made his comments a day after Foreign Affairs Minister David Emerson said there would be an investigation to determine why Canadian intelligence heard nothing before the attack at the Sarpoza prison. The Bloc Québécois and the Liberals questioned yesterday why there was no action taken after Canadian military officials warned more than two years ago that the prison walls were on the verge of collapse.” (The Globe and Masil (Canada) (18 June 2008)
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