Iraqi city locked down after prison break

[maddezmom]

Source: AP

BAGHDAD — Iraqi officials say about 15 prisoners have escaped from a prison in Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit and authorities have locked down the city as they search for fugitives.

Iraqi military spokesman Maj. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf said Thursday that six of the escaped inmates are considered dangerous.

A curfew was imposed on the city after the escape Wednesday night. Authorities are distributing wanted posters with photos of the fugitives and are running checkpoints around the city, which is about 80 miles (130 kilometers) north of Baghdad.



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16 Al-Qaeda prisoners escape from Iraqi prison
(AFP) – 1 hour ago

TIKRIT, Iraq — Sixteen Al-Qaeda members, including five who have been sentenced to death, escaped during the night from a prison in the heart of Tikrit in central Iraq, a security official said on Thursday.

The group managed to remove the windows from a prison bathroom, crawled through the opening and scaled a ladder to climb over the prison wall, the official said.

"Sixteen prisoners from Al-Qaeda managed to escape from one of the prisons in the centre of Tikrit," said the official, who declined to be identified as he is not permitted to speak to the media.

One of the group was re-arrested Thursday morning but the remainder are still at large, he added.

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