Kabul, Afghanistan ? Prison doors and cells have been fortified at the U.S. military jail in Afghanistan, a U.S. official said Wednesday as details emerged of an unprecedented breakout by a suspected al-Qaida leader and three others who picked locks and evaded a mine field.

The Pentagon’s belated confirmation of the identity of one of the four who escaped in July, Omar al-Farouq, sparked anger in Southeast Asia where he was one of Osama bin Laden’s top lieutenants.

Some officials in Indonesia, where he was captured in 2002 before being handed over to U.S. authorities, accused Washington of failing to inform them of the escape.

U.S. Atty. Gen. Alberto Gonzales described the apparent breakdown in communication as a “serious problem” and told CNN in an interview that it would be investigated.

Although the escape was widely reported in July, U.S. authorities at the time gave only an alias to identify al-Farouq, who was born in Kuwait to Iraqi parents.

According to a top security consultant in Indonesia, Ken Conboy, al-Farouq joined al-Qaida in the early 1990s and trained in Afghanistan for three years before unsuccessfully trying to enroll at a flight school in the Philippines so he could commandeer an airplane on a suicide mission.

He later plotted to stage car and truck bombings at U.S. embassies across Southeast Asia on or near the first anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the United States, but the plan was thwarted and he was captured, Conboy said.

The four escapees boasted about their breakout on a video broadcast Oct. 18 on Dubai-based television station Al-Arabiya, according to two editors at the station, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to talk to the media.

The editors said the four Arabs claimed to have plotted their escape on a Sunday when many of the Americans on the base were off duty. One of the four, Muhammad Hassan, said to be Libyan, said he picked the lock of their cell.

In the video, apparently filmed in Afghanistan, the men show fellow militants a map of the base and the location of their cell. Another shot in the video showed Hassan leading the others in prayer. The editors would not say how they received the video.