Mass jail break in Pakistan of Taliban fighters

Reuters:

Taliban fighters disguised as police and armed with bombs and grenades broke 250 prisoners out of a Pakistan jail in a brazen overnight attack that undermined the new government's ability to combat an escalating insurgency.

The assault on the heavily guarded Central Prison in the city of Dera Ismail Khan took place despite reports that regional officials had received intelligence a fortnight ago suggesting such an attack was imminent.

The carefully planned attack underlines the growing capabilities of the Pakistani branch of the Taliban, an offshoot of the Islamist insurgents of the same name in neighboring Afghanistan.

Despite promising peace talks with the insurgents during an election campaign earlier this year, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif appears to be accepting that the use of military force may be unavoidable after a series of high-profile attacks.

The Pakistani Taliban said they had sent a squad of 100 fighters and seven suicide bombers on a mission to free some of their top leaders, and they said they released 250 prisoners - a number roughly matched by local Pakistani authorities.

Fighting continued into the early hours of Tuesday, with explosions and machine gunfire rattling the city in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, on the edge of Pakistan's lawless tribal regions bordering Afghanistan.

At least 12 people were killed, officials said, including five policemen and four prisoners from the minority Shi'ite sect whose throats were slashed by gunmen, officials said. The Taliban are mostly majority Sunni Muslims.
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There is more.

This appears to follow the pattern of al Qaeda in Iraq which freed about 50 terrorist.  It could be that these groups are so desperate for fighters they view the jail breaks as their best chance of increasing their ranks.  In Pakistan it is possible that the US can track these gys with drone strikes.  Pakistan's security measures need to be improved.