Past Al Qaeda/Taliban Prison Breaks

Hole in the floor: Afghan jailer Ghulam Dastager Mayaar points to the tunnel through which 500 prisoners escaped from Kandahar jail. The Daily Mail

Great Prison Breaks Of The War On Terror -- Foreign Policy

In the Middle East and Central Asia, when suspected militants go to jail, they don't necessarily stay there. This was very much in evidence this week when the Taliban built 1,000 feet of underground tunnels (shown above) to free nearly half the prisoners at the Sarposa prison in Kandahar. It was a brazen feat to be sure, though not even the largest break in the history of that prison.

That honor goes to the 2009 Taliban raid that freed nearly 1,200 prisoners from Sarposa, including 350 Taliban members. That break involved two truck bombs crashing into the front gates followed a group of fighters armed with RGPs and automatic rifles. Security upgrades were made after the attack and an American military officer told reporters just this year that the only way to break in would be would be to “put a nuke on a motorcycle.” Or, you know, build a really long tunnel -- a method that was a pop culture cliché by 1963.

Here are a few more notable great escapes of the war on

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My Comment: This last break-out is a colossal security failure .... but I will bet that in the end .... no one is going to be disciplined for it.