Kandahar inmates tunnel to freedom in mass break

[Moonlight Graham]

Wow.

Hundreds of inmates tunnelled out of the main prison in Kandahar early Monday with the help of Taliban insurgents in a brazen escape that underscored huge failings in Afghan security.

Officials said more than 480 prisoners managed to flee the Sarposa prison over a four-hour period overnight.

Militants had apparently begun digging the tunnel five months earlier. The 300-metre-long tunnel from a nearby house went to a point underneath the cells, according to a statement issued by the Taliban.

The diggers broke through to the cells late Sunday night. One inmate told the Associated Press that he and other inmates had obtained keys from "friends," leading to speculation they had inside help.

linky dinky

Talk about lax (and likely corrupt) security. If Afghan guards can't prevent an escape like this by insurgents/Taliban, we are expecting to train these guys to secure their country and government? Training their military is a waste of time, let's just cut a power deal with the Taliban and come home.

[eyeball]

...let's just cut a power deal with the Taliban and come home.

And just let the likes of Hitler himself rise again?

Presumably this is just as apt a question now as it was when I suggested we leave Afghanistan to the Afghans some 10 years ago.

[bloodyminded]

I read an article by Salman Rushdie in early 2002, in which he frothed self-righteously--and mockingly--about those who opposed the war. The opponents were "spineless" and "wrong at every turn," he intoned with a satisfied air. The Taliban had been utterly defeated, few civilians had been killed, and Karzai's governemnt was proving to be doing very well.

I wonder if he regrets putting all that in print.

(It's not quite as bad as Mark Steyn's 2003 announcement, his confident prediction that Iraq would be a tourist haven by...2004! )

[Bob]

Where's the outrage from Ujjal Dosanjh and calls for an independent inquiry? After all, with terrorists spilling back out onto the battlefield, it isn't too much of a stretch to state that this places Canadian soldiers at increased risk. It's probably fair to assume that this prison was holding terrorists captured on the battlefield by Canadian forces. I guess the Liberals are only incensed when they suspect a terrorist may have been roughed up and not fed meals three times a day in line with Health Canada's food guide.

The article also states that Canada was involved in the reconstruction of this prison after a 2008 attack that released about 900 terrorists. Pathetic. I don't even understanding why there's a policy to take prisoners from terrorists captured in combat. Take-no-prisoners would make a lot more sense to me.

Edited April 30, 2011 by Bob