HASAKEH, Syria: Daesh group on Friday attacked a Syria prison housing fellow jihadists and a military base in Iraq in near simultaneous deadly operations that revived fears of a Daesh resurgence.
The jihadist group has yet to comment on the attacks and there is no indication that they are coordinated but, according to analysts, they strongly suggest Daesh is trying to boost its ranks and arsenal in an attempt to reorganize across both countries.
In Syria, an ongoing Daesh attack on a northeast Syria detention facility holding the largest number of Daesh suspects killed at least 20 Kurdish security forces and set several Daesh fighters free, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The prison break that began late Thursday was one of the group’s most significant attacks since its “caliphate” was declared defeated in the war-torn country nearly three years ago.
As Daesh operatives launched their bid to free some of the estimated 3,500 fellow fighters jailed at Ghwayran prison in the Syrian city of Hasakah, the jihadists killed 11 soldiers in an attack on an army base in the east of neighboring Iraq.
The attack marked the jihadists’ deadliest operation in Iraq this year.
While the Iraq operation quickly came under wraps, Kurdish forces in Syria continued to battle jihadists in Hasakah, hours after the prison attack began with a Daesh car bomb late Thursday, the Observatory said.
“The number of those killed among Kurdish internal security forces and prison guards stands at 20,” Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP.
The war monitor, providing figures that were not immediately confirmed by the authorities of the autonomous Kurdish region, also said at least 16 jihadists were killed in the ongoing fighting.
The brazen Daesh operation sewed chaos in Hasakah, forcing people to flee the area around Ghwayran prison.
Daesh fighters hunkered down in homes around the facility, sometimes using residents as human shields, as Kurdish forces fought to retake full control of the neighborhood and hunt down prisoners on the loose.
Daesh has carried out regular attacks against Kurdish and regime targets in Syria since the last rump of its once-sprawling proto-state was defeated on the banks of the Euphrates in March 2019.
Most of their guerrilla attacks have been against military targets and oil installations in remote areas but the Hasakah prison break could mark a new phase in the group’s resurgence.
The Syrian Democratic Forces, the Kurds’ de-facto army in northeast Syria, said it had recaptured 89 Daesh detainees in its sweep of the area.
“Clashes continue in the vicinity of the prison,” the SDF said in a statement.
The US-led international coalition formed to battle Daesh acknowledged the attack and added that the SDF had suffered casualties but did not say how many.
Daesh “remains an existential threat in Syria and cannot be allowed to regenerate,” the coalition said.
The Kurdish authorities have long warned they did not have the capacity to hold, let alone put on trial, the thousands of Daesh fighters captured in years of operations.
According to Kurdish authorities, more than 50 nationalities are represented in a number of Kurdish-run prisons where more than 12,000 Daesh suspects are now held.
From France to Tunisia, many of the Daesh prisoners’ countries of origins have been reluctant to repatriate them, fearing a public backlash at home.
A UN report last year estimated that around 10,000 Daesh fighters remained active across Iraq and Syria, many of them in Kurdish-controlled areas.
Prison breaks have been a recurring part of jihadist groups’ strategy in both Iraq and Syria for over a decade.
Before becoming the world’s most wanted man, Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, the leader of what was later to become known as the “Islamic State,” had launched a campaign in 2012 focused on releasing prisoners.
His proclamation of Daesh’s so-called caliphate in 2014 across swathes of Iraq and Syria came a wave of operations in Iraq during which several hundred fighters were freed, including from the notorious Abu Ghraib prison.
“Jailbreaks and prison riots were a central component of Daesh’s resurgence in Iraq and is a serious threat in Syria today,” said Dareen Khalifa, senior Syria analyst at International Crisis Group.
She pointed out that many of the prisons in the Kurdish-run areas of Syria where much of the Daesh caliphate’s former “army” is being held were converted schools ill-suited to holding high-risk detainees for long periods.
Since Kurdish forces backed by the US-led coalition flushed out the last die-hard jihadists holding out in the village of Baghuz in 2019, Daesh has been patiently rebuilding.
The confusion and corruption that are rife in the vast desert expanses on both sides of the Iraqi-Syrian border have allowed Daesh remnants to lie low and plot their next moves.