Twenty-three prisoners convicted of terrorism charges escaped from a prison in Iraq's city of Mosul today, Reuters quoted police as saying. The inmates fled through a hole they made in a wall at Ghazlani prison in the southern area of the city, which is an al Qaeda stronghold about 390 km (240 miles) north of Baghdad. The escape happened in the morning but prison guards did not discover it until the afternoon, police said. Authorities alerted military and police checkpoints in the city to be on the lookout for the escapees. Police said there were al Qaeda militants and other "high value" detainees among those who escaped.
