More than 1,000 prisoners escape as Taliban blows up gates of Afghan prison

Officials said nearly all of the 1,150 prisoners, including 400 Taliban inmates, fled in the dark.

It is believed some prisoners were killed in a gun battle between police and Taliban fighters inside the jail.

The Taliban blew up the gates of a prison in Kandahar releasing more than 1,000 prisoners

'I think scores of others are caught up inside,' one official said.

It is thought the gate was blown up by a suicide bomber driving a truck before Taliban fighters entered the prison and started releasing prisoners.

Prison director Abdul Qadir said a number of guards were injured.

"They used a truck to blow the gate open and all of the guards have been killed and are under rubble," he said.

Several rockets were fired at the prison during the raid.

Later, more rockets hit a base used by foreign troops in another part of the city, an official and several residents said. Sirens were heard from inside the base.

The U.S. military has handed over an unspecified number of suspected Taliban fighters to Afghan custody under a programme agreed last year to transfer all Afghan prisoners from U.S. detention.

The U.S. military has arrested thousands of suspected Taliban and al Qaeda militants since invading Afghanistan in 2001 to help topple the Taliban government.

Last month, scores of Taliban prisoners in Kandahar's jail staged a hunger strike, mostly complaining of being badly treated.

The number of Al Qaeda-backed Taliban attacks has increased since 2006 and the prison raid ranks among one of the biggest.

The militants tried to assassinate President Hamid Karzai in April when he was attending a military parade near the presidential palace in Kabul. They are mostly active in southern and eastern areas near the border with Pakistan.

The latest attack came a day after international donors in Paris pledged more than $20billion for Afghanistan's development and security projects.

The resurgence of Taliban comes despite the presence of more than 60,000 foreign troops under the command of NATO and the U.S. military as well as the over 150,000 government forces.