Afghan justice minister claims mass jail escape had ‘inside help’

HUNDREDS of insurgents who escaped from a jail in Afghanistan’s volatile south through a tunnel dug by the Taliban must have received inside help from prison guards or officials, the Afghan government said.

Afghan authorities and foreign troops have launched a manhunt after the embarrassing breakout, which President Hamid Karzai’s office called a “disaster” ahead of the summer fighting months and as NATO and the United States begin preparing for a gradual withdrawal.

Tooryalai Wesa, the governor of southern Kandahar province, also said 71 of the 488 prisoners who escaped had been recaptured. The Taliban said as many 541 had escaped through the tunnel and were later driven away.

Justice Minister Habibullah Ghaleb, in a letter to Karzai, laid much of the blame for the mass breakout from Kandahar’s Sarposa jail on failings by Afghan security forces and foreign troops.

The house, where the entrance to the 320-meter long tunnel began, lay within sight of the high-security prison and was searched not long before the breakout, Ghaleb said. The Taliban have said the tunnel took five months to build.

“The house where the tunnel was found was searched by security forces two-and-a-half months ago,” he said.

“Earth or soil dug out of the tunnel must have been moved and should not have been missed by the security forces,” Ghaleb said.

General Ghulam Dastgir, governor of the jail, said many of the prisoners had likely fled to safe havens in neighbouring Pakistan.