Attacks at prisons raise worries of al-Qaeda's strength in Iraq The brazen assaults on two prisons in Iraq this week were significant not only for the hundreds of prisoners who were freed but also for what they indicate about the growing capabilities of al-Qaeda's Iraq affiliate, U.S. officials and experts outside government said on Tuesday. The attacks on the prisons at Abu Ghraib and Taji were carefully synchronized operations in which members of the al-Qaeda affiliate used mortars to pin down Iraqi forces, employed suicide bombers to punch holes in their defences and then sent an assault force to free the prison's inmates, Western experts said. "We are concerned about the increased tempo and sophistication of al-Qaeda operations in Iraq," said a senior State Department official, who requested anonymity because he did not want to be seen as commenting on Iraq's internal affairs. James F. Jeffrey, who was the U.S. ambassador in Baghdad when the last U.S. troops left in December 2011, said that Iraqi forces had performed poorly and that it was clear that their skills had deteriorated now that the U.S. troops training them were gone. "This is the first example I have seen that the absence of American troops that would have provided tactical training has had an impact on the battlefield," said Mr. Jeffrey, who is now a visiting fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. The audacity of the assaults underscored the worsening conditions in Iraq, where stability has been undermined by car bombings and other violence tied to a resurgence of sectarian tensions in the country, largely between the majority Shiites and minority Sunnis. The al-Qaeda affiliate in Iraq is a largely homegrown organization of Sunni militant extremists that include foreign fighters and has had some foreign leaders. "This attack is unlike any other attack when they target a coffee shop or a public market," said Hamid Fadhil, a political science professor at Baghdad University. They are targeting the most secured place with big numbers of security forces. Other Iraqis said the prison break had intensified their fears of being killed or injured by just venturing outside at the wrong time. "If al-Qaeda can attack a prison, it means they can do whatever they want whenever they want," said a lawyer, Meluk Abdil Wahab, 45. Thousands of inmates were in Taji and Abu Ghraib, the prison made infamous by the Iraqi prisoner abuse scandal during the eight-year U.S. occupation, and there were conflicting accounts on the number of escapees and casualties. But there appeared to be little dispute that hundreds of al-Qaeda members, some of whom had been captured by U.S. forces before they withdrew, were now on the loose, an outcome that sent fear through Baghdad and beyond. Al-Qaeda said 500 inmates had escaped from the two prisons, all of them mujahedeen, or holy warriors. Iraqi officials said 800 prisoners had fled from Abu Ghraib, of which 400 had been recaptured or killed. They said that no prisoners had escaped from Taji, but that an unspecified number had been killed there. There have been other signs the al-Qaeda's affiliate is becoming a growing threat. About 80 car bombs and suicide bombings were carried out in May, a type of attack generally associated with it. That was the highest number of such attacks since March 2008. But Mr. Jeffrey said that the prison breakout was especially worrisome because it would strengthen extremist fighters in the region and encourage some Iraqis in Sunni areas to take a more militant stance, since the episode would be seen as sign that the al-Qaeda affiliate is getting stronger while the Iraqi government forces are ineffective. "It will provide seasoned leadership and a morale boost to al-Qaeda and its allies in both Iraq and Syria," Mr. Jeffrey said. And it is likely to have an electrifying impact on the Sunni population in Iraq, which has been sitting on the fence. The escape of al-Qaeda-linked prisoners is also likely to increase the threat against the leaders of Sunni tribes that aligned themselves with U.S. troops during the troop "surge" in 2007 and 2008 and fought the extremist group. Kirk Sowell, the editor of the newsletter Inside Iraqi Politics, said the episode has also punctured Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's carefully devised image as the man who brought order to Iraq - all the more so since Mr. al-Maliki has controlled the appointment of senior military officials and maintained a tight hold on the defence and interior ministries. "The glow that Maliki had of being the strong leader who rebuilt Iraq, that's gone," Mr. Sowell said. In another development that has chipped away at Mr. al-Maliki's reputation, Mr. Sowell noted, the commander of Iraq's 17th division recently resigned with a blast at Iraq's political leadership. In its statement, the al-Qaeda affiliate said that the prison breakout was called "Crushing the Tyrants" and that it had taken place precisely one year after its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, announced a campaign to free prisoners from jails around the country, according to SITE, a research organization that monitors jihadist websites. There have been other prison breakouts, including a September 2012 attack in Tikirit that freed more than 100 prisoners. The Iraqi government later said it had recaptured more than 40 of them. But the latest breakout was on a much greater scale. According to the al-Qaeda-affiliated account, the planners of the assaults, which began Sunday evening, co-ordinated the detonation of 12 car bombs and a barrage of mortar rounds and rockets to kill sentries outside the prisons as groups of heavily armed assailants who had taken an oath not to emerge alive until the prisoners were freed, breached the entrances. An emergency committee formed by Mr. al-Maliki to investigate the attacks said that its initial findings suggested that "some of the guards were involved with the terrorist attackers."