Hundreds escape after Iraq prison attacks

[Savonarola]

Hundreds escape after Iraq prison attacks

Security forces try to recapture al-Qaeda members after deadly overnight assault on Abu Ghraib and Taji prisons.

Last Modified: 22 Jul 2013 13:40 

A manhunt is under way for hundreds of inmates, including four high-ranking al-Qaeda members, who escaped two Iraqi prisons following deadly attacks.

Fifty-six people were killed in Sunday's attacks on Taji prison, north of Baghdad, and the Abu Ghraib facility, west of the Iraqi capital.

The dead include 26 members of the security forces and 20 inmates. Ten of the attackers also died.


Most of them were convicted senior members of al-Qaeda and had received death sentences.

Hakim al-Zamili, Senior member of the security and defence committee


Gunmen fired mortar rounds at the prisons.

Four car bombs were also detonated near the entrances to the jails, while three suicide bombers attacked Taji prison, a police colonel said. Several roadside bombs also exploded near the prison in Taji.

Fighting continued throughout the night as the military deployed aircraft and sent in reinforcements around the two facilities.

"The number of escaped inmates has reached 500, most of them were convicted senior members of al-Qaeda and had received death sentences," Hakim al-Zamili, a senior member of the security and defence committee in parliament, told Reuters.

Al Jazeera's Jane Arraf, reporting from Baghdad, said that this was the most serious challenge from al-Qaeda the government has faced in years.

"This is a group they thought they had dismantled," our correspondent said.

"There has been surprisingly little public reaction from the government, one would think they would try to reassure their citizens."

'Pursuing terrorists'

The situation was eventually brought under control on Monday morning, according to the colonel.

"The security forces in the Baghdad Operations Command, with the assistance of military aircraft, managed to foil an armed attack launched by unknown gunmen against the... two prisons of Taji and Abu Ghraib," the interior ministry said in a statement late on Sunday night.

"The security forces forced the attackers to flee, and these forces are still pursuing the terrorist forces and exerting full control over the two regions," it said.

The attacks on the prisons came a year after al-Qaeda's Iraqi affiliate announced it would target the justice system.

"The first priority in this is releasing Muslim prisoners everywhere, and chasing and eliminating judges and investigators and their guards," said an audio message attributed to the group's leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, in July last year.

Prisons in Iraq are periodically hit by escape attempts, uprisings and other unrest.

Abu Ghraib became notorious after photographs showing Iraqi detainees being humiliated and abused by their US guards were published in 2004. It also served as a torture centre under Saddam Hussein's ousted regime.

Deadly violence also hit security forces in northern Iraq on Monday. A suicide car bomber attacked an army patrol in the city of Mosul, killing 12 people and wounding 16, while a roadside bomb wounded a soldier and a civilian near the city.

So are we absolutely sure Jacques Mesrine is dead? 

[The Brain]

Is the pursuit done Benny Hill style?

[Viking]

Is the pursuit done Benny Hill style?

The guys who tried to go into hiding in manama were.

[Savonarola]

Unfortunately "The Troubles" and "The Times of Trouble" have already been taken; they'd make a good descriptive name for the state of Iraq over the past decade:

Deaths in mortar attack on Iraqi police post
At least nine policemen killed in attack on federal police checkpoint in the town of Shurra, south of Mosul.



Last Modified: 24 Jul 2013 13:31 


At least nine policemen were killed and two others wounded in an attack with mortars and automatic weapons on a federal police checkpoint in northern Iraq.

The attack in the town of Shurra, south of Mosul, on Wednesday was followed by a roadside bomb explosion as emergency personnel rushed to the scene, wounding another two people, medical sources said.

There were no casualties among the attackers, security officers said.

Mosul, 360km northwest of Baghdad, has been one of Iraq's major flashpoints in the recent wave of violence.

In a separate incident, unknown assailants killed a soldier in Mosul, while armed men killed a man in Baquba, a city north of Baghdad.

Prisoner transport attacked

On a highway in Anbar province, west of Baghdad, fighters in vehicles mounted with machineguns attacked an army checkpoint and a joint army-police convoy in an apparent attempt to free a captured senior al-Qaeda member who was being carried in the convoy.

The attack left four of the fighters dead, while a soldier and an attacker were wounded.

The violence comes a day after an al-Qaeda front group claimed brazen assaults on two prisons in Iraq that killed more than 40 people.

Security forces are hunting the prisoners who escaped during the assaults, to prevent them carrying out further attacks.

With the latest unrest, more than 650 people have been killed so far in July, making it the deadliest month in a year.

[Savonarola]

Deadly wave of car bombs strikes Iraq

At least 46 killed and about 176 injured in coordinated bombings targeting mainly Shia areas in Baghdad and Basra.
Last Modified: 29 Jul 2013 15:28 

A wave of 13 car bombs has struck mainly Shia areas in and around the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, killing at least 46 people and injuring hundreds more, security and medical officials have said.

A car bomb also targeted a market in the centre of southern city of Basra killing at least three people on Monday, security sources told Al Jazeera.

The deadliest of Monday's attacks occurred near a taxi terminal in the city of Kut, 150km southeast of the capital, police said. At least five people were killed and 38 injured when two car bombs blew up.

Elsewhere, a magnetic "sticky bomb" killed a police captain in Anbar province.

Four more died in a blast in the town of Mahmoudiya, about 30km south of Baghdad.

The rest of the bombings took place across Baghdad, in Sadr city, Habibiya, Hurriya, Bayaa, Ur, Shurta, Kadhimiya, Tobji, Shua'ala and Risala neighbourhoods, Reuters news agency reported.

One of the Baghdad bombings struck near a place where day labourers wait for work in the overwhelmingly Shia area of Sadr City, killing five people and wounding 17, according to AFP.

A relentless campaign of bombings and shootings has killed nearly 4,000 people in Iraq since the start of the year, according to violence monitoring group Iraq Body Count.

The violence has raised fears of a return to full-blown conflict in a country where Kurds, Shia and Sunni Muslims have yet to find a stable way of sharing power.

In July alone, more than 810 people have lost their lives in attacks.

This would make the month of July the most violent since about May 2008.

[Siege]

I was in Taji.
That's were they have the tank junkyard were I took that old "Fuck U CdM" picture.
Its a pretty big place. You fire a round on the south wall of Taji and you would never hear it on the north wall.
Sorrounded by civilian habitat.
Too easy to disappear when you are over the wall.
And the river is about 300m from the east wall.
You cross it, and you are in shia territory. So they probably didn't go that way.

[mongers]

I was in Taji.
That's were they have the tank junkyard were I took that old "Fuck U CdM" picture.
Its a pretty big place. You fire a round on the south wall of Taji and you would never hear it on the north wall.
Sorrounded by civilian habitat.
Too easy to disappear when you are over the wall.
And the river is about 300m from the east wall.
You cross it, and you are in shia territory. So they probably didn't go that way.

Interesting.   


Of course during you time in theatre, Seigy, they'd have been trying to break into the jail to keep out of your way.   

[garbon]

Of course during you time in theatre, Seigy, they'd have been trying to break into the jail to keep out of your way.   

[Savonarola]

Deaths in bombings and shootings across Iraq
At least 19 people died in a wave of violent incidents, including an assault on a top military commander's convoy.

Bombings and shootings across Iraq have killed at least 19 people, including an ambush that targeted a convoy carrying a top military commander, authorities said.

Saturday's attack was targeting the motorcade of General Abdul-Amir al-Zaidi, a top military commander, in an area north of Baghdad.

Gunmen killed six of al-Zaidi's bodyguards and wounded four others, police said. The attack took place near the town of Adeim, about 100km north of Baghdad.

Al-Zaidi, who commands some government forces in Diyala and Salahuddin provinces, was not hurt in the attack, police said.

Gunmen also broke into the house of a former fighter of an anti-al-Qaeda group known as Sahwa, killing the man's wife and two daughters near the city of Baqouba. The father was not in the house at the time of the attack.

Sahwa joined with US troops in the war against al-Qaeda at the height of Iraq war. Ever since, it has been a target for Sunni fighters who consider them traitors. There were several attacks in July targeting current and former Sahwa members.

Bloodiest Ramadan

In another attack near Baqouba, 60km northeast of Baghdad, gunmen shot and killed two Sahwa fighters as they were working on their farm.

Meanwhile, police officials said fighters in a car killed two off-duty policemen near the northern city of Mosul.

In the central Iraqi city of Tikrit, a roadside bomb explosion killed a father and his son, authorities said.

In western Baghdad, a bomb went off near a line of car part stores, killing two people and wounding seven others, officials said.

In the southeast of the capital, authorities said a blast missed a police patrol but killed two civilian passers-by.

Violence has been on the rise in Iraq all year, but the number of attacks against civilians and security forces has spiked during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, which began early last month.

With Saturday's attacks, at least 597 people have been killed since the start of Ramadan, according to an Associated Press news agency count, making it the bloodiest Ramadan in Iraq since 2007.

The surge in the bloodshed is raising fears of a return to the widespread killing that pushed the country to the brink of civil war after the 2003 US-led invasion.

I hope that this latest wave will end tomorrow with the end of Ramadan; but as Al-Qaeda seems to be on the move I'm not sure that's a reasonable hope.

[mongers]

I earlier read some news report that countries in the ME are being advised to watch out for concerted prison assault/mass escapes organised by AQ/affliates, talk about stable-doors.

[Viking]

Perhaps these countries will start doing what Obama did when he found out that locking these terrorists up wasn't an attractive option and just murder them with flying death robots?

[Savonarola]

Dozens killed in latest Baghdad bombs

At least 28 dead in series of attacks as sectarian violence threatens to bring country to brink of civil war

A spate of bombings Wednesday in mainly Shia neighborhoods of the Iraqi capital Baghdad killed at least 28 people and wounded 65, security and medical officials said.

The series of blasts struck across Baghdad from around 7:30 a.m. local time, according to the officials who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The bombings lasted for about an hour, targeting crowded markets.

Police officials said the deadliest attack was in the central Sadria neighborhood, where a parked car bomb went off at an outdoor market, killing five shoppers and wounding 15.

Other attacks took place in Shaab, Tobchi, Karrada, Azamiyah and Amil neighborhoods.

Al Jazeera's Imran Khan, reporting from Baghdad, said the death toll could have been higher as the attacks happened on a day that has been declared a holiday by the government due to heavy rains.

There was no immediate reaction from the Iraqi government.

Iraq is experiencing a surge in violence since April, following a deadly security raid on a Sunni protest camp in the country's north. Since then, more than 5,500 people have been killed, according to the United Nations.

I was surprised at the death toll since April.  Even Al-Jazeera hasn't been reporting the violence since the end of Ramadan.

[Valmy]

It's ok.  At least we know for a fact they have no WMDs that can be hijacked.

[Razgovory]

I hate when Prisons attack.

[Savonarola]

Iraq police storm mall, end deadly siege

Iraqi police stormed a mall in a northern city that Al-Qaeda gunmen used to launch an attack on a nearby police station, killing three militants and ending an hourslong standoff as attacks elsewhere left seven dead Thursday, authorities said.

Armed fighters held off police from their rooftop position on six-story Jawahir mall in Kirkuk, 150 miles north of Baghdad, overnight, throwing down grenades and firing on officers and civilians who tried to flee the fighting. Officers raided the mall Thursday morning before dawn, killing the militants, said Brig. Gen. Sarhad Qadir, Kirkuk's police commander.

No security forces or civilians were wounded in that fighting, Qadir said, though it left large portions of the mall burned. Eleven storekeepers hid inside the mall during the attack, scared to leave, he said.

The fighting in Kirkuk began Wednesday, when authorities said a car bomb exploded at the gates of the Police Intelligence Department. A suicide bomber on foot entered the station and detonated his explosives after that, officials said. The gunmen on the mall's roof then opened fire down on the station, they said.

The police station attack killed five officers and two civilians, while wounding some 70 people, Qadir said. However, those figures have yet to be confirmed.

"This is a very bold attack," said an Al Jazeera source who could not be named for security reasons. "Some local sources are saying that 25 people have died, but others say it is much higher."

In a statement posted on an extremist website Thursday, the Iraqi branch of Al-Qaeda claimed responsibility for the Kirkuk attacks, saying six suicide bombers took part in the assault on the police station and the mall.

"A suicide bomber exploded his car bomb at the gate of the headquarters, paving the way for his brothers. Then, three attackers stormed the headquarters and started to reap the heads of the tyrants by using assault rifles and hand grenades ... then they set off their explosive belts," the group said.

It said the gunmen in the mall used explosives to kill themselves as police launched their raid.

The authenticity of the statement could not be verified, though it was posted on a website commonly used by armed groups and its style was consistent with earlier Al-Qaeda statements.

Meanwhile Thursday, police said gunmen wearing military uniforms stormed the house of a police major in Arej village just south of Mosul, about 225 miles northwest of Baghdad. The gunmen killed the police major and his two sons, officials said.

In western Baghdad, a bomb blast on a commercial street killed two people and wounded six, police said. An explosion near shops in the town of Madian, just south of Baghdad, also killed two people and wounded six, officials said.

The coordinated attack on the police station and shopping mall is the latest in a surge of violence across Iraq, which has claimed more than 6,200 lives this year.

In the bible a frequently used metaphor is the sword "Devours" as though it were a ravenous monster.  It's interesting how Al-Qaeda uses the metaphor "Reap" for assault rifles, as though it were a tool for harvest and the heads of tyrants were made of delicious corn.