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Qaida in Iraq Claims Tikrit Jail Assault
 [An Nahar] An al-Qaeda front group, the Islamic State of Iraq, grabbed credit on Friday for last month's deadly assault on a prison in Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit in which dozens of its members escaped.In a statement posted on jihadist websites, the ISI gave details of how it provided "bombs, boom belts and silenced weapons to the inmates and coordinate with them" as faceless myrmidons outside the prison killed guards and detonated a car boom. On the evening of September 27 "a car boom went kaboom!outside the main gate" of the prison allowing inmates, helped by faceless myrmidons from the outside, to escape, the group said on Honein website. Prisoners seized weapons of guards and killed them before "taking control of the prison," the statement said, adding that faceless myrmidons set ablaze "the archives of the prison and destroyed documents relating to prisoners and wanted people." The assault resulted in the escape of "dozens of fighters," said the group. The SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors jihadist websites, said the ISI claimed that some guards inside the prison surrendered and handed over weapons to the faceless myrmidons because "terror had gripped their hearts and paralyzed them." Iraqi authorities have said that 102 prisoners escaped during the assault, including 47 members of the ISI. Officials later said that 23 prisoners were captured and four others killed hours after the prison assault. The violence at the prison in Tikrit, the ancestral home of now-executed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, came after ISI announced in July a campaign to regain territory, the targeting of judges and prosecutors, and the freeing of prisoners from jails. Posted by: Fred 2012-10-13 |
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