KABUL/KANDAHAR (AFP/AP) -- Afghan and international troops launched a desperate hunt Saturday for more than 1,100 prisoners NATO said escaped a jail in Afghanistan when Taleban blasted it open.

The prisoners escaped during a Taleban bomb and rocket attack on the main prison in southern Afghanistan that knocked down the front gate and demolished a prison floor, Afghan officials said Saturday.
The police chief of Kandahar province, Sayed Agha Saqib, said 390 Taleban prisoners were among the 870 who fled the prison during the attack late Friday.
NATO's International Security Assistance Force put the number of escapees slightly higher, at around 1,100, according to spokesman Brig. Gen. Carlos Branco. He conceded that the assault was a success.
“We admit it,” Branco said. “Their guys did the job properly in that sense, but it does not have a strategic impact. We should not draw any conclusion about the deterioration of the military operations in the area. We should not draw any conclusion about the strength of the Taleban.”
The complex attack included a truck bombing at the main gate, a suicide bomber who struck a back wall and rockets fired from inside the prison courtyard, setting off a series of explosions that rattled Kandahar, the country's second biggest city.
The rockets demolished an upper prison floor, said Mohammad Qasim Hashimzai, a deputy minister at the Justice Ministry. Nine police were killed in the attack, said Interior Ministry spokesman Zemeri Bashary.
There were no indications that the militants received help from the inside, but as a precaution the prison's chief official, Abdul Qabir, was placed under investigation for possible involvement, Hashimzai said.
A Taleban spokesman, Qari Yousef Ahmadi, said 30 fighters on motorbikes and two suicide bombers attacked Sarposa Prison.
NATO was providing intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance assets to help track fleeing fighters, Branco said.
Afghan officials warned that the Taleban essentially boosted its force by 400 fighters because of the prison break, but Branco said NATO officials didn't think it would change the military situation.
“OK, they got some more fighters, more shooters,” Branco said. “These guys who escaped from the prison are not going to change the operational tempo and they do not provide the Taleban with operational initiative.”
A man who claimed to be one of the fighters, who escaped, Abdul Nafai, called an Associated Press reporter and said they had minibuses waiting outside the prison during the attack and that dozens of them fled in the vehicles. Other witnesses and officials said the fighters fled on foot into pomegranate and grape groves behind the prison.
-