HASAKEH: US-backed Kurdish forces on Sunday said they had defeated all Daesh fighters left inside the Syrian jail that the extremists stormed 10 days ago sparking battles that left over 330 dead.
The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) announced the end of its mopping-up campaign inside the prison “after ending the last pockets in which IS terrorists were present,” it said in a statement.
Daesh fighters on January 20 launched their biggest assault in years on the Ghwayran prison in the Kurdish-controlled northeastern Syrian city of Hasakah, aiming to free fellow militants.
After six days of intense fighting, the SDF announced on Wednesday they had recaptured the prison, but intermittent clashes continued until Saturday between Kurdish fighters and extremists near the jail.
Several Daesh fighters had been holed up in “northern dormitories” inside the prison, but the SDF on Sunday said they been defeated.
Daesh gunmen had been hiding in prison “cellars that are difficult to target with air strikes or infiltrate,” the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
The war monitor, which relies on a network of sources inside Syria, said operations were still ongoing near the prison hunting for escaped Daesh fugitives.
“Dozens of IS members managed to escape from Ghwayran prison... in the early hours of the attack,” the war monitor said.
It reported that 20 Daesh fighters had surrendered on Saturday, while the SDF killed another five in an exchange of fire inside the prison.
The Britain-based group said that 332 people had been killed since the onset of the attack, including 246 Daesh militants, 79 Kurdish-led fighters and seven civilians.
The death toll rose overnight on Sunday after the SDF found over 50 more bodies in prison buildings and nearby areas, the war monitor said.
“The newly discovered bodies were inside and outside the prison,” Rami Abdel Rahman, who heads the Observatory, told AFP.
He said the death toll was likely to rise further, because “there are dozens of people who are wounded, others who are still missing, and information about more casualties” on both sides.
On Saturday, an AFP correspondent saw a truck carrying away piles of bodies from an area near the prison, believed to be those of Daesh fighters.
A bulldozer dumped more corpses onto the truck, which then headed to an unknown location.
Farhad Shami, who heads the SDF’s media office, told AFP that the bodies would be buried in “remote, dedicated areas” under SDF control.
The violence prompted 45,000 people to flee Hasakah, the United Nations said. Many took refuge in relatives’ homes, while hundreds more slept in the city’s mosques and wedding halls.
The war in Syria, which broke out in 2011, has killed close to half a million people and spurred the largest conflict-induced displacement since World War II.
Syrian Kurdish forces end mop-up operations in Daesh-hit jail
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Syrian Kurdish forces end mop-up operations in Daesh-hit jail
- Several Daesh fighters had been holed up inside the prison, but the SDF on Sunday said they been defeated
- A war monitor said operations were still ongoing near the prison hunting for escaped Daesh fugitives
The UN says Al-Hol camp population has dropped sharply as Syria moves to relocate remaining families
The UN says Al-Hol camp population has dropped sharply as Syria moves to relocate remaining families
- Forces of Syria’s central government captured the Al-Hol camp on Jan. 21 during a weekslong offensive against the SDF, which had been running the camp near the border with Iraq for a decade
DAMASCUS: The UN refugee agency said Sunday that a large number of residents of a camp housing family members of suspected Daesh group militants have left and the Syrian government plans to relocate those who remain.
Gonzalo Vargas Llosa, UNHCR’s representative in Syria, said in a statement that the agency “has observed a significant decrease in the number of residents in Al-Hol camp in recent weeks.”
“Syrian authorities have informed UNHCR of their plan to relocate the remaining families to Akhtarin camp in Aleppo Governorate (province) and have requested UNHCR’s support to assist the population in the new camp, which we stand ready to provide,” he said.
He added that UNHCR “will continue to support the return and reintegration of Syrians who have departed Al-Hol, as well as those who remain.”
The statement did not say how residents had left the camp or how many remain. Many families are believed to have escaped either during the chaos when government forces captured the camp from the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces last month or afterward.
There was no immediate statement from the Syrian government and a government spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.
At its peak after the defeat of IS in Syria in 2019, around 73,000 people were living at Al-Hol. Since then, the number has declined with some countries repatriating their citizens. The camp’s residents are mostly children and women, including many wives or widows of IS members.
The camp’s residents are not technically prisoners and most have not been accused of crimes, but they have been held in de facto detention at the heavily guarded facility.
Forces of Syria’s central government captured the Al-Hol camp on Jan. 21 during a weekslong offensive against the SDF, which had been running the camp near the border with Iraq for a decade. A ceasefire deal has since ended the fighting.
Separately, thousands of accused IS militants who were held in detention centers in northeastern Syria have been transferred to Iraq to stand trial under an agreement with the US
The US military said Friday that it had completed the transfer of more than 5,700 adult male IS suspects from detention facilities in Syria to Iraqi custody.
Iraq’s National Center for International Judicial Cooperation said a total of 5,704 suspects from 61 countries who were affiliated with IS — most of them Syrian and Iraqi — were transferred from prisons in Syria. They are now being interrogated in Iraq.
