Prisoners dug 600-foot tunnel

BAGHDAD, Iraq — Military officials on Saturday released details about a large escape tunnel dug by prisoners that was discovered Thursday at a detention center in the southern part of Iraq.

Reports of violence elsewhere continued, including attacks that killed two U.S. soldiers and a Marine.

The tunnel was discovered by U.S. soldiers working as guards at the sprawling southern detention center of Camp Bucca. It was the largest tunnel discovered so far at a detention center, officials said.

It was 12 feet to 16 feet underground and ran 600 feet, from beneath the floorboards of a detainee tent to the exterior of the camp, on the other side of a berm, said Lt. Col. Guy Rudisill, a spokesman for the detainee system. The tunnel was apparently discovered by guards before any detainees had a chance to use it, he said. It was unclear how many detainees had worked on the tunnel or when they had begun to dig it.

Camp Bucca holds 6,049 people, nearly two-thirds of the prisoners in the three main U.S. detention centers, which have swelled to capacity. The camp is split into compounds of 800 detainees each.

On Jan. 31, prisoners there rioted and attacked guards with rocks. The guards opened fire and killed four prisoners and injured six.

The two U.S. soldiers killed Saturday had been on patrol in southwest Baghdad early in the day when a suicide car bomber rammed into their convoy, the U.S. military said. The western neighborhoods of Baghdad, straddling the approach to the airport and to Abu Ghraib prison, are rife with insurgents. U.S. and Iraqi troops in the capital have sustained heavy casualties in those areas.

The military also said on Saturday that a Marine was killed on Friday in Anbar province, in western Iraq. Anbar includes Fallujah and the provincial capital of Ramadi, an insurgent stronghold. Guerrillas frequently attack Marine patrols and outposts near the restive Syrian border.

At Camp Bucca, Rudisill said, the guards began searching for underground escape passages after they found a smaller tunnel last week. They then noticed dirt in latrines and piles of dirt by the camp perimeter. The detainees had used shovels fashioned from thick poles, canvas, pieces of metal and rope from the tents, and had cut open a 5-gallon water jug to use to remove dirt from the tunnel, he said.

"Of course the guards are on heightened alert," he said, adding that they were checking to make sure there were no more tunnels.