US-backed Syrian Kurdish forces sought to tighten the noose on Tuesday around Islamic State (IS) jihadists entrenched in a prison in Syria, five days after an assault by this extremist organization followed by bloody fighting.
On January 20, around 100 members of the IS group attacked Al-Sinaa prison in the Ghwayran district of Hassaké (northeast), one of the largest Syrian prisons housing jihadists, with trucks booby traps and heavy weapons.
Fierce fighting in the prison and surrounding areas ensued between the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which controls this prison, and the attackers, killing 166 people in five days — 114 jihadists, 45 SDF fighters and 7 civilians, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (OSDH).
The clashes, which continue episodically, have driven about 45,000 people who lived in nearby areas to flee, according to the UN.
Some 3,500 jihadists were detained in this prison, the OSDH said. And according to human rights groups and the UN, hundreds of minors are also being held there.
After the assault, the inmates mutinied against their guards. Some seized weapons from a prison armory and participated in the fighting. A number of assailants managed to enter the prison, the NGO said.
Hundreds of jihadists managed to flee. But “more than 850 terrorists, among the detainees who participated in the mutiny and the attackers, have surrendered,” said Farhad Shami, spokesman for the Kurdish-dominated SDF.
The prisoners and some of the assailants are entrenched in the northern part of the prison, and the Kurdish forces are seeking to completely surround them, OSDH director Rami Abdel Rahmane told AFP.
“Surrender or Fight”
The FDS receive help from American soldiers deployed in Syria as part of the international anti-jihadist coalition led by the United States.
They progress slowly in the prison, for fear of an ambush, and play “on the time factor to push for a surrender of the jihadists”, specified Mr. Abdel Rahmane.
“They have no choice but to fight to the end or surrender. If a settlement is not found, a massacre could occur, and hundreds of people would be killed,” he added.
Efforts are underway to allow the provision of medical care to injured jihadists in prison, in exchange for the release by the jihadists of about 15 guards and prison staff they are still holding, he said.
Farhad Shami confirmed that calls for the surrender of the jihadists as well as the release of prison staff and minors of different nationalities imprisoned because of their links with the IS group had been made. Several children have indeed been recruited and trained by the group in Syria.
The UN and other international organizations have expressed concern after the SDF accused the jihadists of using these minors as “human shields”.
” Time bomb “
The jihadist assault on the prison is the largest attack carried out by the IS group since its 2019 defeat in Syria inflicted by the SDF with the help of the international coalition.
The Kurds, who control parts of northern and northeastern Syria, have for years called for the repatriation of some 12,000 jihadists of more than 50 nationalities, from European and other countries, held in their prisons. In vain.
Mr. Shami reiterated this call for repatriation, stating that “the most dangerous terrorists in the world are in the prison” of Ghwayran.
For Nick Heras, a researcher at the Newlines Institute, the jihadist assault should constitute “a warning signal for Westerners, which proves that the FDS do not have sufficient capacities to be able to accommodate, treat and keep alone and indefinitely tens of thousands of prisoners of the EI group”.
Triggered in March 2011 by the repression of demonstrations for democracy, the war in Syria has become more complex over the years with the involvement of regional and international powers and the rise of jihadists.
The conflict has killed around 500,000 people, devastated the country’s infrastructure and displaced millions of people.