384 escape in Pakistan jailbreak

Pakistani security officials gather at the damaged main entrance of a prison, following an attack by armed militants in Bannu on Sunday. Some 384 prisoners, including militants, escaped from the jail in northwestern Pakistan. [Karim Ullah / Agence France-Presse]

Dozens of Islamist militants stormed a prison in Pakistan in the dead of night early on Sunday and freed 384 inmates, including one on death row for trying to assassinate former president Pervez Musharraf, police officials said.

Pakistan's Taliban movement, which is close to al-Qaida, said it was behind the brazen assault by militants armed with rocket-propelled grenades and AK-47 assault rifles.

A police official said most of the escapees from the jail in the northwestern town of Bannu were militants.

"I don't remember the exact time, but it must have been way past midnight. There were huge explosions. Plaster from the ceilings fell on us," said prisoner Malik Nazeef, speaking by mobile phone to Reuters from the jail.

"Then there was gunfire. We didn't know what was happening."

While the Taliban in neighboring Afghanistan have staged several jail breaks, such attacks are rare in Pakistan.

"We have freed hundreds of our comrades in Bannu in this attack. Several of our people have reached their destinations, others are on their way," a Taliban spokesman said.

The claim could not be immediately verified.

The attackers fired rocket-propelled grenades at the black metal gates of the prison, blowing them open. Debris was strewn on the ground inside, including locks that were shot off doors. Walls were pockmarked with bullet holes.

An assault of this scale will likely generate fresh questions over Pakistan's progress in fighting militancy since joining the US-led campaign against militancy, launched after the Sept 11, 2001 attacks.

Pakistan's performance has come under more intense scrutiny since US special forces in May last year found Osama bin Laden in a Pakistani town, where he had apparently been living for years, and killed him in a secret raid.

Pakistani officials describe bin Laden's long presence in the town of Abbottabad as a security lapse and reject suggestions that members of the military and intelligence service were complicit in hiding him.

The Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, or Taliban Movement of Pakistan, is seen as the biggest threat, staging suicide bombings and attacks on military compounds.

In the unruly ethnic Pashtun tribal areas near the Afghan border, the Taliban control large pockets where they use floggings and beheadings to impose their version of Islamic law.

A police official identified one of the inmates who escaped as a "dangerous prisoner" named Adnan Rasheed, who took part in one of the attempts to kill Musharraf.

"He was a mastermind in (one of the attacks) on Musharraf. These people came for him and took another 383 people too," the official said.

Reuters