Monday, 25 April 2011

More than 470 inmates at an Afghan jail have escaped through a tunnel hundreds of metres long.

Officials at the jail in Kandahar city said the tunnel had been dug from the outside and many of those who escaped were Taliban insurgents.
The Kandahar provincial governor's office said some escapees had since been recaptured but gave no details.
A spokesman for the Taliban said it had dug the 320m (1,050ft) tunnel and that it had taken five months to construct.
Zabiullah Mujahid said about 100 of those who escaped were Taliban commanders, and most of the others were fighters with the insurgency.
The jailbreak is the second major escape from the prison in three years.
In June 2008, a suicide bomber blew open the Kandahar prison gates and destroyed a nearby checkpoint, freeing about 900 prisoners, many of them suspected insurgents.
The prison holds about 1,200 inmates.
"A tunnel hundreds of metres long was dug from the south of the prison into the prison and 476 political prisoners escaped last night," said prison director General Ghulam Dastageer Mayar.
The Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) said it was ready to provide assistance if requested by Afghan officials.
@'BBC'

wikileaks WikiLeaks

You can bet the Murdoch press and the Pentagon will do its tired old routine about redactions tomorrow. Don't be fooled.

Guantánamo files lift lid on world's most controversial prison

A History of the Detainee Population

A Statement by the United States Government

“It is unfortunate that The New York Times and other news organizations have made the decision to publish numerous documents obtained illegally by Wikileaks concerning the Guantanamo detention facility. These documents contain classified information about current and former GTMO detainees, and we strongly condemn the leaking of this sensitive information. “The Wikileaks releases include Detainee Assessment Briefs (DABs) written by the Department of Defense between 2002 and early 2009. These DABs were written based on a range of information available then.
“The Guantanamo Review Task Force, established in January 2009, considered the DABs during its review of detainee information. In some cases, the Task Force came to the same conclusions as the DABs. In other instances the Review Task Force came to different conclusions, based on updated or other available information. The assessments of the Guantanamo Review Task Force have not been compromised to Wikileaks. Thus, any given DAB illegally obtained and released by Wikileaks may or may not represent the current view of a given detainee.
“Both the previous and the current Administrations have made every effort to act with the utmost care and diligence in transferring detainees from Guantanamo. The previous Administration transferred 537 detainees; to date, the current Administration has transferred 67. Both Administrations have made the protection of American citizens the top priority and we are concerned that the disclosure of these documents could be damaging to those efforts. That said, we will continue to work with allies and partners around the world to mitigate threats to the U.S. and other countries and to work toward the ultimate closure of the Guantanamo detention facility, consistent with good security practices and our values as a nation.”

Geoff Morrell
Pentagon Press Secretary
Ambassador Dan Fried
Special Envoy for Closure of the Guantanamo Detention Facility
Via

Insurgents, Counterinsurgents, and the Provision of Social Services

Military Documents Detail Life At Guantanamo

Haunted By Heroes (A Band to Watch!!!)

Photos by Linda in San Francisco (Earth Day)

HA!

Come in number 99!

"Er we have no 99"
Are you in trouble number 66?

(Thanx HerrB!)

Asher_Wolf Asher Wolf

*bangs head against wall repeatedly* RT @LowyInstitute 52% of Aust. support sending troops to South Korea in case of war with North Korea

The Guantánamo Files

A trove of more than 700 classified military documents provides new and detailed accounts of the men who have done time at the Guantánamo Bay prison in Cuba, and offers new insight into the evidence against the 172 men still locked up there. Military intelligence officials, in assessments of detainees written between February 2002 and January 2009, evaluated their histories and provided glimpses of the tensions between captors and captives. What began as a jury-rigged experiment after the 2001 terrorist attacks now seems like an enduring American institution, and the leaked files show why, by laying bare the patchwork and contradictory evidence that in many cases would never have stood up in criminal court or a military tribunal.
The documents meticulously record the detainees’ “pocket litter” when they were captured: a bus ticket to Kabul, a fake passport and forged student ID, a restaurant receipt, even a poem. They list the prisoners’ illnesses — hepatitis, gout, tuberculosis, depression. They note their serial interrogations, enumerating — even after six or more years of relentless questioning — remaining “areas of potential exploitation.” They describe inmates’ infractions — punching guards, tearing apart shower shoes, shouting across cellblocks. And, as analysts try to bolster the case for continued incarceration, they record years of detainees’ comments about one another...