MOSCOW (Sputnik) — At least 40 prisoners, including 9 members of the Islamic State, escaped a detention facility in the Diyala province, according to the Iraqi Interior Ministry spokesman.
“Forty people escaped, and nine are Daesh [Arabic name for the IS] members,” Saad Maan said as quoted by The Washington Post on Saturday.
He added that 36 people were killed in the accident, six guards among them.
According to the spokesman, the escape began early Saturday when a prisoner seized a guard’s weapon and started a sporadic shelling.
Prison breaks frequently happen in Iraq. At least 500 prisoners escaped the Abu Ghraib facility on July 21, 2013, when the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant militants, IS's precursor, attacked it.
The Islamic State militant group controls large parts of Iraq and Syria and is notorious for numerous atrocities, including beheadings of foreign hostages shown on video.
