BAGHDAD — U.S. aircraft and Iraqi patrols combined in a massive manhunt Thursday after the escape of 16 prisoners — including five al-Qaeda-linked inmates awaiting execution — who apparently crawled through a bathroom window in a makeshift jail at a former compound belonging to Saddam Hussein.
The jailbreak in Hussein’s hometown of Tikrit highlighted the struggles of Iraqi authorities to maintain control over an overcrowded prison system and absorb thousands of detainees turned over by U.S. forces as part of a broad security pact. At least two senior officials were fired after the escape late Wednesday.
Few details on the fugitives were provided by Iraqi security chiefs. But five were Iraqis who were sentenced to death for terrorism-related crimes and links to al-Qaeda in Iraq, said a Tikrit police officer on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the operation with the media.
The other 11 escaped convicts were jailed on charges that included kidnapping and murder, and some were awaiting sentencing, the officer said. At least one — a 19-year-old inmate — was recaptured early Thursday, but the others remained at large.
A full-scale curfew was imposed on the city of 250,000 after the escape, and it was eased before sundown Thursday. Soldiers, however, expanded checkpoints and displayed wanted posters with photos of the fugitives. Military units also sharpened their watch on Iraq’s borders — particularly the western frontier with Syria — as the dragnet widened over sparsely populated regions outside Tikrit.
At the request of local authorities, U.S. military in the area provided search dogs and aerial surveillance, spokesman Maj. Derrick Cheng said.
Iraqi Interior Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf would not comment on the inmates’ possible links to al-Qaeda, saying only that some of the escaped convicts are considered “dangerous.”
In other developments, Iraq’s largest Shiite political party boosted security around its leader, Ammar al-Hakim, after foiling a suspected assassination plot this week, senior officials in the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council said.
Near the Iranian border, police seized a vehicle carrying 150 mines believed to be used in the production of roadside bombs, said police Maj. Aziz al-Emarah in Wasit province.
