Nearly 250 Captives Escape in Pakistan Prison Attack PESHAWAR - Nearly 250 prisoners escaped after a massive attack on one of the main prisons in northwestern Pakistan on Monday night, a senior security official said. The authorities imposed a curfew in the city of Dera Ismail Khan, in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province, after the overnight attack on the 100-year-old central prison there, which had held more than 500 inmates. All roads leading to neighboring restive tribal regions of North and South Waziristan were blocked and a search has begun, officials said, adding that six prisoners had been recaptured. "The attackers have melted away in the population," one official said. Shahidullah Shahid, a spokesman for the banned Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, said it had sent 150 fighters to take part in the attack and that they freed 200 inmates. He said two militant fighters were killed in the attack. In the attack, more than 100 militants armed with rocket-propelled grenades and heavy arms rode in on motorbikes and vehicles and then blasted the prison walls and broke open locks on cells, freeing 243 prisoners, including 30 militants, the security official said. The escapees include five female prisoners, and witnesses said that the militants took them along with a female jail warden. "They used megaphones to call names of their comrades in the lockups and then broke up their cells using explosives devices," the official said. The attack began at around 11 p.m. and continued for three hours, the official said. "There are explosives littered around the compound," the official said. Four policemen and five civilians were among the dead. Four prisoners who belonged to the minority Shia sect and had been charged in targeted killings were also identified and killed by militants, the official said. Another 13 people were injured in the attack. The attack was the second major prison raid in two years. In April last year, militants stormed a prison in neighboring Bannu district, freeing nearly 400 prisoners. A senior security official said that before the attack, information had been passed to the district administration, security forces and jail authorities about an imminent assault and that a conference had been held to assess the prison's security. "The attack was so sudden and big," the official said. Probably, no one suspected it was around the corner. No security measures could be put in place to pre-empt it. "This is a debacle of the highest order," said a senior government official. We had timely intelligence and senior district administration and security officials had visited the central prison to check security. Still this debacle?