Gunmen free 900 from Algerian jail

Algiers - Muslim fundamentalist gunmen freed 900 fellow Islamists, including 280 on death row, after storming a top- security mountain fortress prison, Algerian state radio reported yesterday. Security forces scouring the rugged Aures region arrested 39 assailants and escapees, and killed five in the manhunt.

The news agency APS, quoting the newspaper Liberte, referred to 'a spectacular operation by terrorist groups' against the Tazoult prison, 220 miles east of Algiers, after the Ramadan feast on Thursday. Inquiries indicate that the attackers had the complicity of two members of the prison staff, the justice ministry said, adding that one staff member was killed, four were wounded and seven were abducted by the dozens of attackers. Reuter