IRAQ: Suspected insurgents held in a high-security jail in Baghdad fought a gun battle with Iraqi warders and soldiers, backed by US troops, during an attempted break-out yesterday that left nine dead and six wounded.
The prisoners were described by the Iraqi government as among the most dangerous insurgents in custody. Prisoners involved in the break-out included a Russian, Tunisian and Saudi.
The inmates overpowered guards when they were taken to clean a courtyard at dawn at the Kadhimiya jail inside a military base once used by Saddam Hussein's secret police. It holds about 200 prisoners.
An Iraqi official said five staff and four inmates were killed and five prisoners and a US soldier wounded. US and Iraqi troops on the perimeter had to be called in to help put down the disturbance.
It has emerged, meanwhile, that a French engineer has become the latest victim of a recent spate of abductions in the country.
A little-known Iraqi group warned in a video broadcast on Arab television in Dubai that it would kill the man, named as Bernard Planche, unless there was an end to the "illegal French presence" in Iraq. France has no troops in the country.
Mr Planche said he worked on water projects in Baghdad.
In the prison drama, one of the guards said the escape attempt began when an officer tried to shackle the prisoners' legs.
"One of them pushed the officer aside and another attacked the guard standing nearby and took his gun. Then he shot the officer dead and wounded the guard."
He added: "The five prisoners rushed towards the armoury and shot the sleeping guard dead before they grabbed weapons, ammunition and body armour and also some keys."
The guard said the escapees then freed others. "The group rushed the gate, firing on soldiers there and killing two of them."
Violence has been steadily increasing since a relative lull around the elections on December 15th. Sunni Muslim insurgents, who are at the forefront of the resistance, called a temporary truce but have since resumed attacks.
Brig Gen William McCoy, head of the US army corps of engineers, said yesterday attacks on Iraqis working on US-backed reconstruction projects were at a record high.
Six Iraqi contractors have been killed, five wounded and two kidnapped in 32 assaults across the country this month. "It's been a pretty bad month," Brig Gen McCoy said.
He said Baghdad was getting about six hours of electricity a day compared with 11 in October.
Although the final results of the election are still to be announced, the preliminary results are out, showing the Shia Muslim parties close to an overall majority and the Sunnis doing less well than they had hoped.
Iraq's biggest political grouping, the United Iraqi Alliance, yesterday opened negotiations on forming a coalition government for the next four years to restore basic services such as water and electricity, impose law and order and oversee the withdrawal of US and British troops.
Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, leader of the Shia alliance, held talks in Arbil, in Iraqi Kurdistan, with Jalal Talabani, the Iraqi president and leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan.
The Shia and Kurds will have enough seats to form a government, but they will come under pressure from the US and Britain to include parties representing Sunni Muslims, who have been marginalised since the fall of Saddam.
About 1,500 complaints of electoral fraud are being investigated, but UN official Craig Jenness told a press conference in Baghdad organised by the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq yesterday that he saw no fundamental problems with the way the election had been conducted.- (Guardian service)