Via LWJ:
Al Qaeda’s affiliate, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, launched coordinated suicide assaults last night against two Iraqi jails, killing 26 policemen and freeing more than 500 prisoners.
The al Qaeda affiliate attacked prisons in Abu Ghraib, just west of Baghdad, and Taji, north of the capital, on Sunday in an effort to break out leaders and fighters being held by the government.
The attacks began as suicide bombers struck at the main gate to open a hole for assault teams, Reuters reported. The attacks were accompanied by mortar fire and rocket-propelled grenades from supporting units, while blocking forces deployed on the roads to the prisons to fend off Iraqi forces attempting to relieve the besieged prison guards.
Iraqi policemen in Taji fended off the assault, but al Qaeda was far more successful at Abu Ghraib, where hundreds of terrorists escaped. Iraqi forces fought the al Qaeda assault team until Monday morning before regaining control of the prison.
“The number of escaped inmates has reached 500, most of them were convicted senior members of al Qaeda and had received death sentences,” a senior member of the security and defense committee in parliament told Reuters. Some of the inmates were recaptured after Iraqi reinforcements reached the prison, but most have escaped.