E-MAIL THIS LINK
To: 

Guards, inmates killed in Baghdad jail battle
BAGHDAD - At least nine prisoners and guards were killed in a gun battle at a Baghdad high-security jail on Wednesday after detained guerrilla suspects, some of them foreign, grabbed weapons and tried to flee, officials said.
"C'mon boys, we gotta make a break!"
One Iraqi inmate snatched a Kalashnikov rifle from a guard as a handful of high-risk prisoners were taken out at dawn to clean the yard, a guard from the site told Reuters. After raiding the prison armoury, the group freed more comrades but US and Iraqi troops based around the jail quelled the revolt.
And this was at a high security facility?
Five staff and four inmates were killed and five prisoners and a US soldier were wounded, the US military said, denying assertions by police, including an Interior Ministry general, that the death toll was at least 20 among the detainees, who include some of the most violent of Iraq’s insurgents.
"20? No way! It was more like 50!"
Officials put the number of prisoners at the Kadhimiya maximum security jail at over 200. It lies inside the sprawling Adala military base, known to Americans as Camp Justice and once used by Saddam Hussein’s secret police.

The US military said: “Sixteen prisoners attempted to escape the facility after first storming the armoury.” The Justice Ministry prison guard told Reuters: “At 6:30 a.m., five prisoners were taken out to clean the yards. When the officer was trying to shackle their legs to stop them from escaping, one of them pushed the officer aside and another attacked the guard standing nearby and took his gun. Then he shot the officer dead and wounded the guard.”

“The five prisoners rushed towards the armoury and shot the sleeping guard dead before they grabbed weapons, ammunition and body armour and also some keys.”
They have sleeping guards at high-security facilities?
Among seven other prisoners the now armed inmates freed and armed were a Russian, a Tunisian and a Saudi, he said.

”The group rushed the gate, firing on soldiers there and killing two of them,” he added. “They also killed a translator called Firas, a maintenance worker and another guard.”
Posted by: Steve White 2005-12-29
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=138563