Baghdad prison mortar attack kills 22

At least 22 prisoners were killed and more than 90 injured today when mortars rained down on Baghdad’s main jail.

The 12 shells hit Baghdad’s Abu Ghraib prison and all the casualties were security detainees, said US Colonel Jill Morgenthaler said.

Security detainees are Iraqis detained on suspicion of involvement in anti-US violence or in the remnants of Saddam Hussein’s Baathist regime.

Twenty-five of the prisoners needed emergency treatment, Morgenthaler said.

There were no reports that any of the casualties were prominent members of Saddam’s regime.

Insurgents fire mortars at US facilities in the Iraqi capital on an almost daily basis.