FuzzyLumpkins
07-22-2013, 03:59 PM
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Backchannels/2013/0722/How-many-jihadis-just-escaped-from-Abu-Ghraib
How many jihadis just escaped from Abu Ghraib?
Sophisticated overnight attacks on two Iraqi prisons on the outskirts of Baghdad involving mortars, rocket-propelled grenades, and dozens of attackers are a sign of growing potency for the country's Sunni insurgents.
These weren't attacks on mosques or markets, designed to spread terror by killing unprepared civilians in public spaces. These were attacks on the militarized prisons of Abu Ghraib and Taji, both of which have large contingents of insurgents among their inmates and have long been targets for Iraq's jihadis. Yet the government of Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki was forced to scramble attack helicopters and rush troops to join pitched battles. Even so, they may not have staved off a stunning symbolic defeat.
Though early today government officials claimed the attackers had been kept from their ultimate objective – freeing jihadi comrades – as the day wore on scattered claims were made of a stunning insurgent success. Member of Parliament Hakim al-Zamili asserted to Reuters that 500 insurgents escaped from Abu Ghraib alone and that most of them were members of the Al Qaeda-aligned Islamic State in Iraq.
How many jihadis just escaped from Abu Ghraib?
Sophisticated overnight attacks on two Iraqi prisons on the outskirts of Baghdad involving mortars, rocket-propelled grenades, and dozens of attackers are a sign of growing potency for the country's Sunni insurgents.
These weren't attacks on mosques or markets, designed to spread terror by killing unprepared civilians in public spaces. These were attacks on the militarized prisons of Abu Ghraib and Taji, both of which have large contingents of insurgents among their inmates and have long been targets for Iraq's jihadis. Yet the government of Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki was forced to scramble attack helicopters and rush troops to join pitched battles. Even so, they may not have staved off a stunning symbolic defeat.
Though early today government officials claimed the attackers had been kept from their ultimate objective – freeing jihadi comrades – as the day wore on scattered claims were made of a stunning insurgent success. Member of Parliament Hakim al-Zamili asserted to Reuters that 500 insurgents escaped from Abu Ghraib alone and that most of them were members of the Al Qaeda-aligned Islamic State in Iraq.