Prisoners at Camp Bucca in Southern Iraq dug tunnels out of the prison. These tunnels cleared the walls yet no one has escaped according to U.S. soldiers in charge of the prison.

The attempted jailbreak was extremely elaborate, another US spokesman said.

He said it was believed that the tunnels had been dug over several weeks and prisoners had waited for poor weather and low visibility before trying to make an escape.

A shovel cut from a water container was said to have been used to dig the tunnel.

Maj Lee said the entrance to the tunnel was under a floorboard and was concealed with dirt.

Fox News has reported U.S. soldiers became aware of the tunnel after finding several piles of dirt in the prison facility. They began to look where the dirt came from and found the tunnels. There were two main tunnels with smaller tunnels under a few prison cells.

BBC has a few pictures of the tunnels, seen here, and they are quite elaborate. It is believed the tunnels were dug with wooden and metal buckets, metal shards and rocks.

It is rather alarming that these tunnels were completed and the prisoners were just waiting for the right time to escape. Camp Bucca houses over 6,000 prisoners which would create quite a problem for the Coalition forces to try to contain the escape had it happened. Clearly there needs to be better use of technology to watch these types of escape attempts, but it was the good work and keen insight of U.S. soldiers which foiled this escape attempt.