SYRIA: Kurdish forces said Tuesday they had arrested 53 suspected Daesh group members in a northeast Syria camp for relatives of militants, in an anti-Daesh security operation.
The US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) launched Sunday the sweep in Al-Hol camp, which has been rocked by assassinations and breakout attempts.
Kurdish authorities have warned that the settlement, home to almost 62,000 people, is turning into an extremist powder keg because of Daesh militants hiding out among camp residents.
The Kurds’ Asayish security forces said they had “detained 53 Daesh members, including five leaders of Daesh sleeper cells that carried out violent terrorist attacks in the camp.”
They had also “confiscated mobile phones and several laptops,” the SDF-allied police unit added.
Heavily-armed Kurdish forces stood guard outside the camp as others stormed suspected hideouts inside the vast settlement, an AFP reporter said.
In some sections, residents stood outside their tents watching the anti-terrorist squad scour the area.
Al-Hol is the larger of two Kurdish-run displacement camps for relatives of Daesh militants in Syria’s northeast.
It holds mostly Syrians and Iraqis but also thousands from Europe and Asia suspected of family ties with Daesh fighters.
Many residents see the camp as the last vestige of the Daesh proto-state that militants declared in 2014 across large swathes of both Syria and Iraq.
Kurdish authorities have recorded more than 40 murders in Al-Hol since the start of this year.
They say Daesh sympathizers are behind most of the murders, while humanitarian aid sources have said tribal disputes could be behind some of the killings.
Simand Ali, a Kurdish official, told AFP militants had dug trenches in Al-Hol that they used to hide prohibited electronic devices and other goods.
Those detained so far have mostly been Syrians and Iraqis, he said.
Kurds say 53 Daesh members arrested in Syria’s Al-Hol camp
https://arab.news/2fvca
Kurds say 53 Daesh members arrested in Syria’s Al-Hol camp
- Kurdish authorities have warned that settlement, home of 62,000 people, is turning into an extremist powder keg because of Daesh militants hiding among residents
- Residents stood outside their tents watching the anti-terrorist squad scour the area
High-level Turkish team to visit Damascus on Monday for talks on SDF integration
- The visit by Turkiye’s foreign and defense ministers and its intelligence chief comes amid efforts by Syrian, Kurdish and US officials to show some progress with the deal
ANKARA: A high-level Turkish delegation will visit Damascus on Monday to discuss bilateral ties and the implementation of a deal for integrating the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) into Syria’s state apparatus, a Turkish Foreign Ministry source said.
The visit by Turkiye’s foreign and defense ministers and its intelligence chief comes amid efforts by Syrian, Kurdish and US officials to show some progress with the deal. But Ankara accuses the SDF of stalling ahead of a year-end deadline.
Turkiye views the US-backed SDF, which controls swathes of northeastern Syria, as a terrorist organization and has warned of military action if the group does not honor the agreement.
Last week Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said Ankara hoped to avoid resorting to military action against the SDF but that its patience was running out.
The Foreign Ministry source said Fidan, Defense Minister Yasar Guler and the head of Turkiye’s MIT intelligence agency, Ibrahim Kalin, would attend the talks in Damascus, a year after the fall of former President Bashar Assad.
TURKEY SAYS ITS NATIONAL SECURITY IS AT STAKE
The source said the integration deal “closely concerned Turkiye’s national security priorities” and the delegation would discuss its implementation. Turkiye has said integration must ensure that the SDF’s chain of command is broken.
Sources have previously told Reuters that Damascus sent a proposal to the SDF expressing openness to reorganizing the group’s roughly 50,000 fighters into three main divisions and smaller brigades as long as it cedes some chains of command and opens its territory to other Syrian army units.
Turkiye sees the SDF as an extension of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militant group and says it too must disarm and dissolve itself, in line with a disarmament process now underway between the Turkish state and the PKK.
Ankara has conducted cross-border military operations against the SDF in the past. It accuses the group of wanting to circumvent the integration deal and says this poses a threat to both Turkiye and the unity of Syria.
