Or to dig more than 1,000 feet of underground tunnels and pop up into the middle of the prison, as the Taliban did early Monday, freeing one-third of the inmates and collapsing months of efforts to improve security at the jail. The audacious prison break showed again the vulnerabilities in Afghanistan’s justice system, despite rigorous U.S. oversight and a growing sense that authorities had the problematic prison under control.
The Taliban this month has penetrated some of Afghanistan’s most aggressively defended facilities. Attackers have killed Kandahar’s police chief inside his headquarters, exploded on a crowded Afghan army base in Laghman province, and shot up the hallways of the Ministry of Defense in Kabul. The security breaches have raised concerns about the Afghan government’s ability to protect itself from insurgents as U.S. and NATO forces begin to withdraw.
“This clearly shows the weakness of the government and the security forces, and if this doesn’t change, the prison breaks will happen again and again,” said Agha Lalai Dastageri, a provincial councilman in Kandahar.
The jailbreak occurred just as the traditional fighting season gets under way in Afghanistan, and in a part of the country where the U.S. military has focused its efforts. The Taliban movement began in southern Afghanistan, and over the past year U.S. forces have pushed the group out of several areas where it had established dominance earlier in the war. Although U.S. and Afghan soldiers have made progress in the south, most of the violence they face remains in Kandahar and Helmand.
The escaped prisoners probably included members of the Taliban. Inmates in Sarposa are generally those detained by Afghan security forces but can include senior insurgents. A U.S. military spokesman in Kabul referred questions about the jailbreak to Afghan authorities, who are responsible for the prison.
The prison break occurred before dawn Monday, but work on the tunnel had been going on for months, said Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid. There were conflicting reports on the tunnel’s length: The Taliban said it was about 1,200 feet long; Gen. Ghulam Dastagir Mayar, the prison warden, said it ran about 4,000 feet from the southwestern corner of the complex.
The tunnelers reached the surface inside the “political wing” of the prison and ushered out the detainees before dawn. Mayar said the security guards were not asleep but blamed the breach on an undermanned staff. “We cannot put security guards in every room,” he said.
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