Militants attack prison in NW Pakistan

The attack on the jail in the town of
Dera Ismail Khan began with several
explosions at around midnight on
Monday.
Gunmen then opened fire with
rocket-propelled grenades and
machine-guns, police chief Sohail
Khalid said.
The prison houses hundreds of
Taliban and militants from banned
groups. The fighting is still going on.
The attackers were chanting "God is
great" and "Long live the Taliban,"
officials told the Associated Press.
A local resident told the agency that
the initial blast was so loud that "it
rattled every house in the
neighbourhood".
Pakistani Taliban spokesman
Shahidullah Shahid has claimed
responsibility for the attack. He said
around 300 prisoners had been
freed.
"The Taliban have loudspeakers and
they are calling the names of their
friends," the town's civil
commissioner, Mushtaq Jadoon,
said.
Officials said that authorities had
been aware of a threat to attack the
prison in recent weeks.
Provincial prisons chief Khalid Abbas
said he was not sure if any of the
jail's 40 "high-profile" prisoners had
escaped.
Hundreds of inmates were freed in
an assault on a prison in Bannu in
northern Pakistan in April last year.
Dera Ismail Khan is the main city in
Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province, in
Pakistan's restive, mountainous tribal
region.
Monday night's violence comes
hours before Pakistani politicians are
expected to choose the country's
new president.
The replacement for Asif Ali Zardari
will be elected on Tuesday by the
members of both houses of
parliament and the four provincial
assemblies.