DAMASCUS: More than 800 Iraqi nationals left northeast Syria’s Al-Hol camp on Thursday, the facility’s director told AFP, the latest batch to quit the notorious camp that holds suspected relatives of Daesh group fighters.
Jihan Hanan, director of the Kurdish-administered camp, said that “there are approximately 850 people departing today.”
She added that since the start of the year, about 10,000 Iraqis have left Al-Hol in 11 batches.
Kurdish-run camps and prisons in Syria’s northeast hold tens of thousands of people, many with alleged or perceived links to IS, more than six years after the group’s territorial defeat in Syria.
Al-Hol is northeast Syria’s largest camp, and its residents have been living in dire conditions.
Umm Mahmud, 60, an Iraqi woman departing the camp, told AFP: “We’ve suffered greatly in Al-Hol, psychologically, physically and financially.”
“Look at the children, look how happy they are. It’s like a holiday,” she said.
Hanan said the camp now housed approximately 27,000 people, including some 15,000 Syrians and about 6,300 foreign women and children from 42 nationalities, in addition to some 5,000 Iraqis.
While many Western countries refuse to take back their nationals, Baghdad has taken the lead by accelerating repatriations and urging others to follow suit.
In February, Kurdish official Sheikhmous Ahmed said the administration aimed to empty camps in Syria’s northeast of thousands of displaced Syrians and Iraqi refugees, including suspected relatives of jihadists, by the end of the year.
IS seized swathes of Syria and neighboring Iraq in 2014, before being territorially defeated in Syria in 2019, but has since maintains a presence there, particularly in the country’s vast desert.
More than 800 Iraqis repatriated from notorious Syria camp
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More than 800 Iraqis repatriated from notorious Syria camp
- More than 800 Iraqi nationals left northeast Syria’s Al-Hol camp on Thursday, the latest batch to quit the notorious camp that holds suspected relatives of Daesh fighters
US military launches strikes in Syria against Daesh fighters after American deaths
- “This is not the beginning of a war — it is a declaration of vengeance,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth says
- President Trump earlier pledged “very serious retaliation” but stressed that Syria was fighting alongside US troops
WASHINGTON: The Trump administration launched military strikes Friday in Syria to “eliminate” Daesh group fighters and weapons sites in retaliation for an ambush attack that killed two US troops and an American interpreter almost a week ago.
A US official described it as “a large-scale” strike that hit 70 targets in areas across central Syria that had Daesh (also known as Islamic State or IS) infrastructure and weapons. Another US official, who also spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive operations, said more strikes should be expected.
The attack was conducted using F-15 Eagle jets, A-10 Thunderbolt ground attack aircraft and AH-64 Apache helicopters, the officials said. F-16 fighter jets from Jordan and HIMARS rocket artillery also were used, one official said.
“This is not the beginning of a war — it is a declaration of vengeance. The United States of America, under President Trump’s leadership, will never hesitate and never relent to defend our people,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said on social media.
President Donald Trump had pledged “very serious retaliation” after the shooting in the Syrian desert, for which he blamed Daesh. The troops were among hundreds of US troops deployed in eastern Syria as part of a coalition fighting the terrorist group.
Trump in a social media post said the strikes were targeting Daesh “strongholds.” He reiterated his support for Syrian President Ahmad Al-Sharaa, who he said was “fully in support” of the US effort to target the militant group.
Trump also offered an all-caps threat, warning the group against attacking US personnel again.
“All terrorists who are evil enough to attack Americans are hereby warned — YOU WILL BE HIT HARDER THAN YOU HAVE EVER BEEN HIT BEFORE IF YOU, IN ANY WAY, ATTACK OR THREATEN THE USA.,” the president added.
The attack was a major test for the warming ties between the United States and Syria since the ouster of autocratic leader Bashar Assad a year ago. Trump has stressed that Syria was fighting alongside US troops and said Al-Sharaa was “extremely angry and disturbed by this attack,” which came as the US military is expanding its cooperation with Syrian security forces.
Syria’s foreign ministry in a statement on X following the launch of US strikes said that last week’s attack “underscores the urgent necessity of strengthening international cooperation to combat terrorism in all its forms” and that Syria is committed “to fighting Daesh and ensuring that it has no safe havens on Syrian territory and will continue to intensify military operations against it wherever it poses a threat.”
Daesh has not claimed responsibility for the attack on the US service members, but the group has claimed responsibility for two attacks on Syrian security forces since, one of which killed four Syrian soldiers in Idlib province. The group in its statements described Al-Sharaa’s government and army as “apostates.” While Al-Sharaa once led a group affiliated with Al-Qaeda, he has had a long-running enmity with Daesh.
Syrian state television reported that the US strikes hit targets in rural areas of Deir ez-Zor and Raqqa provinces and in the Jabal Al-Amour area near Palmyra. It said they targeted “weapons storage sites and headquarters used by Daesh as launching points for its operations in the region.”
Trump this week met privately with the families of the slain Americans at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware before he joined top military officials and other dignitaries on the tarmac for the dignified transfer, a solemn and largely silent ritual honoring US service members killed in action.
The guardsmen killed in Syria last Saturday were Sgt. Edgar Brian Torres-Tovar, 25, of Des Moines, and Sgt. William Nathaniel Howard, 29, of Marshalltown, according to the US Army. Ayad Mansoor Sakat, of Macomb, Michigan, a US civilian working as an interpreter, was also killed.
The shooting nearly a week ago near the historic city of Palmyra also wounded three other US troops as well as members of Syria’s security forces, and the gunman was killed. The assailant had joined Syria’s internal security forces as a base security guard two months ago and recently was reassigned because of suspicions that he might be affiliated with Daesh, Interior Ministry spokesperson Nour Al-Din Al-Baba has said.
The man stormed a meeting between US and Syrian security officials who were having lunch together and opened fire after clashing with Syrian guards.
When asked for further information, the Pentagon referred AP to Hegseth’s social media post.
