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Policemen outside the prison in Dera Ismail Khan in northwest Pakistan, July 30, 2013, after a Taliban militant attack/AFP

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Taliban Free Nearly 250 in Pakistan Jail Break

“We appeal on people to stay at home. It is to avoid any damage if army, police and paramilitary take any action,” Jadoon said.

The siege began with rocket fire, killing two policemen and providing cover for 50-60 militants to storm inside, Jadoon said.

“First they destroyed a police armoured vehicle parked at the front gate,” he said.

“Police killed one militant who was trying to flee and who opened fire on police near the jail,” he added.

Provincial prisons chief Khalid Abbas said the gunfight raged for three hours. Militants wearing police uniforms stormed the prison after bombing its outer wall and throwing hand grenades at guards.

The prison was plunged into darkness by an electricity outage and after the battle, security forces searched the jail to count inmates by flashlight to determine how many had escaped, he said.

“At least 13 people have been killed and eight injured,” Abbas told AFP.

Among the dead were six police officers, one civilian, two attackers and four prisoners, he said.

Two jail officials told AFP that three of the four prisoners were members of the minority Shiite Muslim community.

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Government and intelligence officials said they had warned that the prison would be targeted, but Abbas defended his prison guards, saying they were not trained to respond to such an attack.

It was not the first time either the Afghan Taliban or their Pakistani offshoot have claimed prison breaks. In April 2012, nearly 400 prisoners escaped from a jail outside Pakistan’s northwestern town of Bannu during a similar insurgent raid.

A year later, almost 500 mostly Taliban inmates made it out of a prison in Afghanistan’s southern Kandahar province through a 250 metre (820-foot) tunnel lined with lights and an air pipe.

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