Pages

Wednesday, August 14, 2013

The Prison Front

I earlier wondered about the Iraq prison assault/escape given that I read that Iraqi officials were more interested in the death penalty to keep al Qaeda from bribing prison officials to release convicted terrorists. Strategypage has an angle that didn't occur to me.

The prison assault was a sign of jihadi weakness in using bribes to release terrorists from prison:

Terrorist groups have staged a growing number of spectacular jail breaks in the last few months. Al Qaeda has even boasted about this. But the reality was that these major assaults on prisons were a sign of failure for al Qaeda. Over the last few years nations dealing with Islamic terrorism had tightened security on their prisons because of the terrorist’s ability (in many Moslem countries) to bribe guards to get their cohorts out. This was embarrassing to governments, especially as it happened so often. So began the trend of the guilty guards being caught and punished (often fatally so) and the terrorists were finding that there were far fewer bribery opportunities among the prison guards and other staff. The only alternative was breakout by direct assault.

Now the prisons just have to be hardened to withstand physical assaults like any military base, with bunkers, surveillance, patrols, and better firepower.