the house where it originated.

But access was denied to the tunnel itself, and it was unclear how the Taliban were able to move so many men out of the prison so quickly. Also unclear was why guards would not have heard the diggers punch through the concrete floor, and whether they supervise the inside of the perimeters at night.

A man who claimed he helped organize those inside the prison told the AP by phone that he and his accomplices obtained copies of the keys for the cells ahead of time from "friends." He did not say who those friends were.

"There were four or five of us who knew that our friends were digging a tunnel from the outside," said Mohammad Abdullah, who said he had been in Sarposaprison for two years after being captured in nearby Zhari district with a stockpile of weapons. "Some of our friends helped us by providing copies of the keys. When the time came at night, we managed to open the doors for friends who were in other rooms."

Abdullah said the diggers broke through Sunday morning and that the inmates in the cell covered the hole with a prayer rug until the middle of the night, when they started quietly opening the doors of cells and ushering prisoners in small groups into the tunnel.

He said they woke the inmates up four or five at a time to sneak them out quietly. They also didn't want too many people crawling through the narrow and damp tunnel at one time because of