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RAMADI, Iraq : Al-Qaeda militants launched a pre-dawn breakout from a police station in the western Iraqi city of Ramadi on Friday, triggering a shootout that left 13 people dead.
"During an exchange of fire between prisoners trying to escape and police officers in the station, six policemen and seven prisoners were killed," provincial police chief Tareq al-Dulaimi said.
Three prisoners managed to flee but one was re-arrested, Dulaimi said, adding that another four policemen were wounded in the shootout that occurred at 2 am (2300 GMT Thursday) at Forsan police station in the centre of Ramadi.
Ramadi police have imposed a curfew in the city following the incident, an interior ministry source said, adding that three fugitive Al-Qaeda militants were "emirs" or local chiefs.
The ministry source said a prisoner wanting to go to the toilet was escorted from his cell by a policeman at 2 am, kicking off what appeared to be a well-planned operation.
"The policeman was overpowered by the inmate who seized his weapon and shot him," the source said.
"He then opened up the other cells and he and his fellow prisoners grabbed weapons from the police station's armoury, opening fire on the policemen."
The prisoners battled police for two hours before officers managed to regain control of the station, a police official said, adding that the escaped men were identified as Iraqis linked to Al-Qaeda.
The recaptured prisoner suffered minor injuries, police said.
On Friday the streets of Ramadi, a city of 540,000, were deserted and shops were shut as a heavy police presence fanned out in an urgent search for the Al-Qaeda escapees.
The predominantly Sunni Arab city, capital of Anbar province, was a key Al-Qaeda stronghold in the aftermath of the toppling of Saddam Hussein's regime by US-led forces in 2003.
Iraq's biggest province became the theatre of a brutal war focused on the cities of Fallujah and Ramadi, while a string of towns along the Euphrates valley became insurgent strongholds and later safe havens for Al-Qaeda.
But since 2006 local Sunni tribes there have sided with the US military to fight the jihadists. Daily violence has dropped dramatically in Anbar as Al-Qaeda fighters have been pushed out of the region.
In September, US marines turned over control of Anbar to about 28,000 Iraqi police and another 8,000 troops.
- AFP/ms
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