Baghdad: More than 20 prisoners, mostly members of the Iraqi security forces and Kurdish Peshmerga combatants, escaped from an Islamic State controlled prison in the northern city of Mosul, according to Kurdish officials.

The prisoners were able to force open the doors of the jail on Monday night, a security official from the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, Ghayath al-Surji, told EFE. The jail was at one time the home of a Christian family that was expelled from Mosul after the city fell into the hands of the jihadists in June 2014.

Located in the district of Mohandisin in eastern Mosul, the house was re-purposed by IS to detain members of regional and national security forces. Since the jailbreak, the jihadists have imposed a partial curfew in several areas around the prison and launched a search operation to find the prisoners.

(IANS)