Another Bright & Shining Moment Of Security

For all the talk about security and improvement of the forces that are "over there" in Afghanistan and Iraq, we still cannot seem to keep the prisons running properly, the police from torturing or killing detainees and/or prisoners, the insurgents from killing the police (or our troops), bombs from exploding in secure areas, or riots from happening inside the prisons.

Militant Inmates Riot and Seize Control of Cellblock in Afghan Prison

PUL-I-CHARKHI, Afghanistan, Feb. 26 — Prisoners in Afghanistan's main high-security prison, among them people accused of being members of the Taliban and Al Qaeda, rioted and seized control of one cellblock on Saturday evening, battling with guards through the night, the Afghan authorities said Sunday.

Up to 5 prisoners were killed and 31 wounded as police guards opened fire to stop them from escaping when the violence began, a health worker at the prison said, based on information from the prison doctor. Sporadic gunfire could be heard outside the prison on Sunday.

The Afghan authorities moved in about 300 soldiers and seven tanks to surround the prison, near Kabul, the capital. The prison houses about 2,000 inmates, including 70 women. The prisoners include ordinary criminals and about 350 prisoners thought to be fighters for the country's ousted Taliban movement or for Al Qaeda. There are also three Americans, two former soldiers, Jonathan K. Idema and Brent Bennett, who were found guilty of running a private jail in Afghanistan, and a free-lance cameraman, Edward Caraballo, who was convicted with them.

Prison officials blamed Taliban and Al Qaeda prisoners for starting the riot, which began with a protest by prisoners over being required to wear uniforms. "They broke the locks of their cells and broke through a wall to the female section and entered the women's cells," said Muhammad Qasem Hashemzai, the deputy justice minister. The women, some of whom have children with them, did not seem to have been harmed, he said.

Prisoners could be seen behind the barred windows of Cellblock 1 on Sunday. They were hanging the light-blue new prison clothes out the windows on metal bedsteads and setting fire to them. Bullet holes pocked the windows of the cellblock from the shooting on Saturday night. The prisoners were shouting, "Long live Islam, long live the prisoners, death to Bush, death to Karzai," a reference to President Hamid Karzai.

The prison in Pul-i-Charkhi, a large pentagon-shaped prison built in the 1970's, became notorious during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan when tens of thousands of opponents were imprisoned and executed and buried in mass graves nearby.