Original Article Afghan prison break brazen Terror suspect escape called 'amazing' Eric Schmitt and Tim Golden New York Times Dec. 4, 2005 12:00 AM WASHINGTON - The prisoners were considered some of the most dangerous men among the hundreds of terror suspects locked behind the walls of a secretive and secure U.S. military detention center in Bagram, Afghanistan. Their escape, however, might as well have been a breakout from the county jail. According to military officials familiar with the episode, the prisoners are believed to have picked the lock on their cell, changed out of their bright orange uniforms and made their way through a heavily guarded military base under the cover of night. They then crawled over a faulty wall where a getaway vehicle was apparently waiting for them, the officials said. "It is embarrassing and amazing at the same time," one U.S. defense official said. "It was a disaster." The fact of the escape was disclosed by the U.S. authorities shortly after it set off an intense manhunt at Bagram, 40 miles north of Kabul, on July 10. But internal military documents and interviews with military and intelligence officials indicate that it was a far more serious breach than the Pentagon has acknowledged. One of the four escapees was identified as al-Qaida's highest-ranking operative in Southeast Asia when he was captured in 2002. Another, a Saudi, was also described by intelligence officials as an important al-Qaida operative in Afghanistan. Although a U.S. military police guard was initially suspected of having helped the prisoners, he was eventually cleared. Half a dozen other soldiers, including officers and sergeants, have received administrative punishments, a senior military official in Afghanistan said. The two prisoners believed to have led the escape, Omar al-Faruq, a Kuwaiti who was the former Qaida operative in Southeast Asia, and Mohammed Jafar Jamal al-Kahtani, the Saudi, had been awaiting transfer to Guantanamo Bay, officials said. For reasons not yet explained, the military authorities gave different names for both men in announcing the escape last summer.