The prison walls were partially destroyed in the attackTaliban militants have freed more than 240 prisoners in an assault on a prison in north-west Pakistan, officials say.
The attack on the jail in the north-western town of Dera Ismail Khan began with huge explosions at around midnight on Monday.
Gunmen then opened fire with rocket-propelled grenades and machine-guns, police chief Sohail Khalid said.
The prison houses hundreds of Taliban and militants from banned groups.
Some of the attackers were dressed in police uniform.
Twelve people were reported killed in the attack, with officials saying six of the dead were police officers.
The town's civil commissioner Mushtaq Jadoon said that 243 prisoners had escaped, including 30 hardened militants.
Attackers used loudhailers to call the names of their friends, Mr Jadoon said.
Fourteen fugitives were later re-arrested by police, he said.
Katherine Houreld, a correspondent for Reuters news agency, told the BBC it had been a "very sophisticated attack - they blew the electricity line, they breached the walls and they set ambushes for reinforcements and they are still battling police as we speak".
Mr Jadoon told a local TV station that 14 explosive devices planted in the jail had so far been defused.
A curfew was imposed in the town and operations were continuing to clear the militants from the prison.
Attack 'threats'
A local resident told the agency that the initial blast was so loud that "it rattled every house in the neighbourhood".
The attackers were chanting "God is great" and "Long live the Taliban", officials said.
Pakistani Taliban spokesman Shahidullah Shahid has claimed responsibility for the attack. He said around 300 prisoners had been freed.
Officials said that authorities had been aware of a threat to attack the prison in recent weeks.
Hundreds of inmates were freed in an assault on a prison in Bannu in northern Pakistan in April last year.
Correspondents say the authorities will face questions about how militants were able to stage a virtually identical attack in Dera Ismail Khan.
The attack appears to be part of a Taliban strategy to break jails instead of negotiating prisoner releases with government, the BBC's Ilyas Khan reports from Islamabad.
Last month, police claimed they arrested some Taliban operatives who were planning to attack a jail in the southern port city of Karachi, our correspondent adds.
Dera Ismail Khan is the main city in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province, next to Pakistan's restive mountainous tribal region.
Monday night's violence came hours before Pakistani politicians were to choose the country's new president.
The replacement for Asif Ali Zardari will be elected on Tuesday by the members of both houses of parliament and the four provincial assemblies.
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