Taliban tunnel breakout tracks Afghan captors - The Guardian

Kandahar prison: the tunnel circumvented the control points and goes directly to the wing housing held "political". Photo: AFP/Str/Getty Images

NATO and Afghan forces launched a huge operation to try to resume 475 prisoners, almost all Taliban insurgents, who organized an extraordinary discussion mass prison by using a tunnel.

Officials have said that the detainees had escaped through the tunnel dug from a House wing of the prison where political prisoners are detained in Kandahar.

In an e-mail, Zabiullah Mujahid, a Taliban spokesman, said the tunnel was 1,050 m long (320 meters) and took five months to build, "bypassing enemy check posts and the main road from Kandahar-Kabul leading directly to the prison policy".

He said only three insurgents inside the prison had known the plot. They helped to ferry the prisoners from the prison in an operation for a period of four years and a half hours.

He said that by 3: 30 a.m. on Monday morning, the whole political wing of the prison was emptied of inmates. These had been conveyed "secure destinations" by a fleet of cars that had organized Taliban.

The message, written in almost perfect English, sings on the failures of the security forces: "the most amazing thing throughout the operation, as reported by respondents Mujahedeen, was that all the enemy forces inside the prison"which includes foreign invaders, have not noticed the results of the operation even four hours later and therefore has not released statements.

"Mujahideen had also placed a martyrdom research group near the prison, including the need did not arise because of inaction by the enemy."

Amir Mohammad Jamshad, the head of prisons in Kandahar, told the Guardian that the tunnel is a major undertaking by the insurgents, who have been unable to use any heavy machinery, because it might have drawn attention to their work.

Tooryalai Wesa, the Governor of Kandahar, said that prison security forces had "breached their duty", but the strenuous efforts were already underway to recapture prisoners.

"Some of the escaped prisoners were taken over by the forces of security during search operations and important operations were launched inside and on the outskirts of the city of Kandahar for the rest of them," said.

He also appealed to residents of Kandahar to call the tipoffs on a special hotline set up by the authorities escaped prisoners.

Despite his insistence that work resume as many prisoners would be done more easily by the biometric detailed records held on all men, including fingerprints and iris scans, discussion is a terrible for the efforts of the Afghan Government and international blow in key province.

A member of the Kandahar provincial Council, Hajji Hematullah, said that, although some prisoners may still be in the city, many others would have a direct line to the security of the Pakistani border.

Many hardened insurgents release comes just before the "season of combat" in the summer and could potentially reverse some of the gains of NATO during the winter in intensified operations to kill and capture insurgents as much as possible.

It is also the second time a considerable number of prisoners have managed to escape prison in three years only. In June 2008, the Taliban stormed the prison, with a suicide attack to break a hole in a prison wall. The operation allowed 870 inmates, including 390 insurgents, to escape.

The discussion was followed days of intense fighting in the outskirts of the city after that the insurgents fled to areas where they were immediately able to take up arms against the NATO forces.

The ruins of the prison was largely reformed and improved in an effort to prevent such an outbreak ever again.

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Afghan blasts kill 3 NATO troops

Bombs killed three NATO soldiers and a gunman shot dead a prominent local official in the South of the Afghanistan, where thousands of Afghan and international troops are cribbing for a resurgence of spring expected the attacks of the Taliban, officials said Sunday.

NATO said a troop died in an explosion Sunday and two others were killed by the explosion of a Saturday.

Earlier, the alliance said that a fourth died Saturday when a coalition helicopter crashed in the province of Kapisa Alasay district in the East.

He provided no details, or nationalities of those killed.

The death brought to 134 the number of NATO troops killed in Afghanistan this year.

The Afghanistan Spring fighting season should be fully in force at the end of this month or early May. Before defining in last winter, tens of thousands of American reinforcements and NATO routed the Taliban in their fortresses, captured the personalities and destroyed caches of weapons, particularly in East and South.

The militants, known for their resilience, responded by attacks of large across the country.

A gunman assassinated Abdul Zahir, Deputy of the Council of provincial peace in Helmand and former civilian head of Marjahdistrict top, late Saturday in the provincial capital of Lashkar Gah, the Interior Ministry said Sunday.

Zahir was also a member of the Council for the local improvement area and key members of the Alizai tribe.

The Taliban claim responsibility for the killing in a telephone call from the Associated Press.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai said that he was saddened by the death of Zahir, a man he describes as "a brave sons of this homeland."

Appointment of Zahir Marjah district at the beginning Chief last year became controversial when folders and reports in Germany showed that Zahir was used as a framework more four years imprisonment for news attempted manslaughter for stabbing his son in 1998.

A U.S. official confirmed that Zahir had a criminal record in Germany, but Zahir refused ever to spend time in a German prison.

His record was involved, because at the time, he was the man responsible for convincing the inhabitants of Marjah the central Afghan Government could better provide for them than the Taliban.

Afghan and coalition forces launched a major offensive in Marjah in February 2010 in the rout of the insurgents from their strongholds in Helmand.

Later, Zahir was named the face of a new local government, a key to the strategy of fight test against insurgencies of NATO.

NATO also confirmed Sunday that Afghan and coalition forces killed three leaders of the Haqqani network, a group of insurgents with close ties to al-Qaeda that operates primarily in the provinces of Paktika, Paktia and Khost. So far this year, more than 15 leaders Haqqani and over 130 other insurgents affiliated with the network have been captured or killed.

More than 90 prisoners were taken in Khost province, where the three is died Friday.

Among those killed was Salih Khan, a leader of Haqqani in Nadir Shah Kot district. According to the coalition, he formed the bomb, orchestrated car bomb attacks and handled logistics and communications for the insurgents in the region.

In the past week, led Khan 20 fighters in two attacks on the coalition of advanced base operations, said coalition.

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Fears of Taliban Fan of Infiltration into Afghan Forces - New York Times

The Taliban rushed to take responsibility for the attack, stating that the shooter was a sleeper agent planted to kill NATO soldiers. Afghan police and the army scrambled to find ways to eradicate the insurgents in their ranks. Screening of new recruits and soldiers escalated.

But when a joint investigation was completed some time later, Afghan and American investigators concluded that the gunman, a man named Ezzatullah in a small village in the Province of Nangarhar, where the attack occurred, was not a sleeper agent at all, but a good soldier overcome by personal stress, including the insistence of his father that he accepts a contract of marriage with a young girl.

Fears about infiltration of the Taliban in the forces of Afghan national security arose again this week after the insurgents in Afghan military uniforms attacked three locations in highly secure Government. The latest attack came Monday the Ministry of defence headquarters in downtown Kabul and killed two Afghan soldiers.

The attacks have fuelled concerns among Afghan officials, who are uncomfortable about their own safety and the fate of a country whose military and they worry the police forces could be impregnated with enemy insurgents. Some in the Senate on Wednesday called the resignation of the Minister of defence, Abdul Rahim Wardak, calling it unable to defend his own Department, much less the country.

But preliminary investigations show that the authors of at least two of the attacks were not used members of the Afghan army or the police, according to two senior intelligence officers NATO and an advisor to NATO informed on investigations. They are also suspicious that the person in the attack remaining was a member, while the investigation continues.

In fact, responsible intelligence not gathered any evidence suggesting that the infiltration is very widespread, as Taliban claims according to the officers, who spoke the condition of anonymity because of the nature of their positions advising Afghan forces. Nevertheless, officials know that the Taliban claims of infiltration breed distrust and are difficult to refute.

"Their goal is to separate the coalition of the Afghan national army, and is an excellent tool for them, whether they have or not," one police officer said.

Infiltration or not, the recent attacks were exposed other security issues, including the severity of the controls for the identification and research to points of control and input and the easy availability of official-looking uniforms and military equipment in stores and bazaars throughout Kabul and the provinces of the body. Investigators were also examining if any guards took bribes to let the insurgents across.

"At least two of them are very clearly the guys who had already obtained a uniform and had been helped," said NATO's Security Advisor. "This is really what we are concerned about - is the enemy capable of penetrating through this filtering system, or that they are actually able to co-opt or use uniforms and equipment that they could collect out on street weaknesses and exploit them in the physical security of these sites."

Concerns about the sleeper agents still run high among afghans and NATO officials. After the attack of November in Nangarhar, forces Coalition intensified abruptly training Afghan intelligence agents. It is their work to identify possible insurgents between Afghan forces and look for signs of military personnel who, acting either financial or personal stress or threats to their families, might fall under the influence of the Taliban. About 200 officers are now in the field, and this number is expected to more than double by the end of the year.

Since September 2009, when the NATO forces began to intensify the efforts to strengthen the national security forces, all recruits are required to go through a process of screening of eight steps. In it, recruits must undergo a criminal history and testing audit and must submit two letters of the elders of the village to the respondents for their character.

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Afghan forces met interviewed after the terrorist attack - ABC Online

TONY EASTLEY: A Taliban shooter was wearing a suicide vest has killed two people and wounded seven others in an attack on the Ministry of defence Afghan fortified in the capital, Kabul.

The attack is the third in four days targeting police and military compounds.

This high-security breach has raised serious questions on the effectiveness of the Afghan forces.

Sally Sara reports corresponding Afghanistan in Kabul.

SALLY SARA: This attack showed that the Taliban are still able to cut through the Afghan Government security forces.

An armed man wearing a suicide vest was able to obtain within the Ministry of defence.

He was talking about how well that several control points, because he was wearing an army uniform and carrying a military identification card.

He has had as the second floor, near the offices of the Minister and the army's Deputy Chief of staff. The attacker opened fire, but he was shot in the head before he could detonate his explosives.

It was a fatal shooting in the corridors of power of the Afghan Defence Ministry.

Although Kabul is one of the seven areas in Afghanistan should be handed over the Coalition Afghan control in July. This attack has created great concern. The Ministry of defence is supposed to be one of the most fortified parts of the capital.

The attack is one of the most serious violations of the security of the Afghan Government in several years. Fortunately, Defence Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak was not in his Office at the time.

The incident has alarmed some analysts.

(Halal Uddin Halal speaking)

Former Deputy Prime Minister of the Interior, Halal Uddin Halal, explains, with certainty, that it's a shock that it happened within the Ministry of defence. But he said when he thinks that logically and professionally he knows that this can happen once more.

It is the third attack on the police and military compounds in four days, including the assassination of the head of the Kandahar police in a raid of suicide and an attack on an army base in the East of the country.

The Taliban have achieving high-level targets, with few civilian victims.

But Halal Halal Uddin, said that the transfer of responsibility for the security of the coalition of Afghan forces must move forward.

(Halal Uddin Halal speaking)

Finally, he stated that the Afghan force will take the responsibilities. He said it's better for the Afghans get this experience for themselves and by difficulties they will solve problems.

These lessons could come at a heavy price if the attacks continue.

Sally Sara is in Kabul for AM.

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