40 dead, 500 escape, as Abu Ghraib and second Iraqi prison attacked Al Qaeda militants flee Iraq jail RAW VIDEO: Hundreds of convicts, including senior members of al Qaeda, break out of Iraq's Abu Ghraib jail as comrades launch military-style assault to free them. Baghdad: Militants have attacked two Iraqi prisons, including notorious Abu Ghraib, freeing at least 500 inmates in assaults that left at least 40 people dead. The co-ordinated attacks on Taji prison, north of Baghdad, and Abu Ghraib, west of the capital, were launched on Sunday night and triggered fighting that raged for around 10 hours. Militants fired mortar rounds at the prisons and car bombs were detonated near the entrances. Abu Ghraib prison, already infamous as a centre for the torture of opponents of now-executed dictator Saddam Hussein's regime, gained further notoriety in 2004 when graphic pictures emerged showing prisoners being humiliated and abused by their US guards. Guards stand at a cell block at the renovated Abu Ghraib prison in 2009 Photo: AP A frenzy of comments posted on social media, including some Twitter accounts apparently operated by jihadists, claimed that thousands of prisoners had escaped. The two prisons had held around 10,000 inmates between them, an interior ministry official said. "About 500 prisoners escaped from Abu Ghraib prison," Hakem al-Zamili, a member of the parliamentary security and defence committee, said. He said the escaped prisoners were "terrorists" but that, to his knowledge, no inmates managed to break out from Taji. However, MP Shwan Taha, also a security and defence committee member, said in an online statement that between 500 and 1000 inmates escaped from the two prisons. Officials say at least 20 members of the security forces were killed and 40 wounded in the attacks. And the justice ministry's spokesman said 21 inmates were killed and 25 wounded in rioting at the prisons. Militants fired mortar rounds at the prisons and car bombs were detonated near the entrances, while three suicide bombers attacked the Taji prison, a police colonel says. Five roadside bombs also exploded near the prison in Taji. Fighting continued throughout the night as the military deployed aircraft and sent in reinforcements. The situation was eventually brought under control on Monday morning.