Taliban prisoners escape in south Afghanistan's Kandahar

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Sunday, October 12, 2003

Taliban prisoners escape in south Afghanistan's Kandahar

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Some 30 members of Afghanistan's ousted Taliban movement have escaped from a prison in the southern city of Kandahar, which was once a stronghold of the former extremist regime, an Afghan official said on Saturday.

"The incident took place last night but the exact number of the escapees has yet to be known," the official in Kandahar said on the condition of anonymity.

Some 20 to 30 Taliban prisoners had probably managed to escape from the Kandahar prison located on the outskirts of the city, he added.

A spokesman of the Interior Ministry in Kabul neither confirmed nor denied the report when responding to a telephone call by Xinhua, saying that more information about the incident would be provided to media on Sunday.

The incident came just two days after US Ambassador-designate to Afghanistan and President George Bush's special envoy on Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad denied earlier reports that a former Taliban foreign minister had been released from US custody.

Afghan sources earlier this week said that Mawlawi Wakil Ahmad Mutawakil had been released by US authorities for mediating secretnegotiations with Taliban leaders.

Duad Khan, a local reporter based in Kandahar, confirmed the escape of the Taliban captives from the Kandahar prison on Friday night.

"However, their escape in fact was their release, which took place under a deal begun with Mutawakil's freedom," he added.

Kandahar and neighboring provinces of Zabul, Helmand and Urozgan in south Afghanistan have been the scenes of increasing guerrilla attacks by holdout Taliban fighters against the US-backed government and US-led coalition forces in the country in recent months.

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