Dangerous Iraqi prisoners escape from U.S. custody

BAGHDAD — Four of the most dangerous prisoners in Iraq escaped late Wednesday from U.S. custody in a heavily fortified prison on the edge of Baghdad, an embarrassing security breach that led to an intensive manhunt, U.S. and Iraqi officials said Thursday.

The four prisoners, who were not identified, were among more than 200 that Iraq asked the U.S. military to continue to hold because of their prominence and the potential threats they posed after the Iraqi government assumed control of the last U.S.-built prison in Baghdad, formerly known as Camp Cropper.

The 200 include former members of Saddam Hussein's government and senior foreign and Iraqi insurgents.

The newly installed U.S. commander in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Lloyd Austin III, met with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki late Thursday to discuss the prison break.

"We stressed the necessity of tightening security and closing any gaps for criminals to escape," al-Maliki's spokesman, Ali al-Mousawi, said of the meeting.

The prisoners escaped during what appeared to be a larger attempted prison break late Wednesday, though officials declined to provide details.

The four were discovered missing after two other prisoners were caught trying to escape, prompting a head count of all the prisoners in the remaining U.S.-controlled section of the prison, the U.S. military said.

It was not clear how the four had escaped from a prison inside a bigger military base, one of the most secure places in all of Iraq.

"Obviously, it is regrettable," the senior U.S. military spokesman, Brig. Gen. Jeffrey Buchanan, said at the U.S. Embassy late Thursday.

The prison break was the latest in a series of troubling developments in Iraq since President Obama declared the end of the U.S. combat mission last week and celebrated the reduction of U.S. troops to less than 50,000 for the first time since the invasion in 2003.

Attacks by insurgents, including one that drew Americans into a firefight Sunday, the killing of two U.S. soldiers by an Iraqi soldier at a base north of Baghdad and now the escape have bolstered a sense of unease at a time the country's politics remain deadlocked.

The U.S. military turned over control of Camp Cropper — and 1,500 prisoners — to the Iraqis on July 15.

Camp Cropper once housed some of the most prominent Iraqis captured by the Americans, including Saddam. The ones that remained in U.S. custody were those deemed the most intractable and dangerous, including some with uncertain legal standing in Iraqi courts.

Only days after the official transfer, four other prisoners escaped from the Iraqi part of the facility, now called Karkh Prison. They included three men identified as senior members of the Islamic State of Iraq, an umbrella group that includes al-Qaida in Iraq. They have not been seen since.

The warden and several prison guards also disappeared at the time, suggesting culpability, if not involvement, in that escape.

Duraid Adnan contributed reporting.