RAQQA, Syria: The Syrian military claimed Tuesday that guards from the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces had abandoned a camp in northeast Syria housing thousands of people linked to the Daesh group, allowing the detainees to escape.
The Al-Hol camp houses mainly women and children who are family members of Daesh members or accused of being otherwise affiliated with the group. Thousands of accused Daesh militants are separately housed in prisons in northeast Syria.
The SDF subsequently confirmed that its guards had withdrawn from the camp, blaming “international indifference toward the issue of the Daesh terrorist organization and the failure of the international community to assume its responsibilities in addressing this serious matter,” using another abbreviation for Daesh.
It said its forces had redeployed “in the vicinity of cities in northern Syria that are facing increasing risks and threats” from government forces.
Representatives of the US military did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Earlier Tuesday, Syria’s ministry of interior said Tuesday that 120 Daesh members escaped from a prison in northeast Syria a day earlier, amid clashes between government forces and the SDF, which guards the prison.
Security forces recaptured 81 of the escapees, “while intensive security efforts continue to pursue the remaining fugitives and take the necessary legal measures against them,” the statement said.
The SDF and the government have traded blame over the escape from a prison in the town of Shaddadeh, amid the breakdown of a ceasefire deal between the two sides.
The SDF, the main US-backed force that fought Daesh in Syria, controls more than a dozen prisons in the northeast where some 9,000 Daesh members have been held for years without trial. Many of the detained extremists are believed to have carried out atrocities in Syria and Iraq after Daesh declared a caliphate in June 2014 over large parts of Syria and Iraq.
Daesh was defeated in Iraq in 2017 and in Syria two years later, but the group’s sleeper cells still carry out deadly attacks in both countries.
Under a deal announced Sunday, government forces were to take over control of the prisons from the SDF, but the transfer did not go smoothly.
On Monday, Syrian government forces and SDF fighters clashed around two prisons housing members of the Daesh group in Syria’s northeast.
The clashes came as SDF chief commander Mazloum Abdi was said to be in Damascus to attempt to solidify a ceasefire deal reached Sunday that ended days of deadly fighting during which government forces captured wide areas of northeast Syria from the SDF.
Abdi issued no statement after the meeting and the SDF later issued a statement calling for “all of our youth” to “join the ranks of the resistance,” appearing to signal that the deal had fallen apart.
President Ahmad Al-Sharaa postponed a planned trip to Germany Tuesday amid the ongoing tensions in northeast Syria.
Syrian military accuses Kurdish forces of allowing Daesh-linked detainees to escape from Al-Hol camp
https://arab.news/2g88x
Syrian military accuses Kurdish forces of allowing Daesh-linked detainees to escape from Al-Hol camp
- Thousands of accused Daesh militants are separately housed in prisons in northeast Syria
- Security forces recaptured 81 of the escapees, “while intensive security efforts continue to pursue the remaining fugitives”
UN votes to end mission in Yemeni city of Hodeida
- The resolution approved Tuesday, which was sponsored by Britain, stipulates that the UN mission in Hodeida — known as UNMHA — must close as of March 31
UNITED NATIONS, United States: The UN Security Council voted Tuesday to terminate a mission that tried to enforce a ceasefire in war-torn Yemen’s port city of Hodeida.
“Houthi obstructionism has left the mission without a purpose, and it has to close,” said Tammy Bruce of the US delegation, one of 13 on the 15 member council to support ending the mission’s mandate.
The UN mission is now scheduled to conclude in two months.
Yemen’s internationally recognized government is a patchwork of groups held together by their opposition to the Iran-backed Houthis, who ousted them from the capital Sanaa in 2014 and now rule much of the country’s north. They also hold Hodeida.
The Houthis have been at war with the government, backed by a Saudi-led coalition since 2015, in a conflict that has killed hundreds of thousands of Yemenis and triggered a major humanitarian crisis.
Since 2021 the Houthis have periodically detained UN staffers and still hold some of them.
The resolution approved Tuesday, which was sponsored by Britain, stipulates that the UN mission in Hodeida — known as UNMHA — must close as of March 31. It has been there since 2019.
Russia and China abstained from the vote.
“For six years, UNMHA has served as a critical stabilizing presence” in the region and “actively deterred and prevented a return to full scale conflict,” said Danish representative Christina Markus Lassen.
“The dynamics of the conflict have evolved, and the operating environment has significantly narrowed as UN personnel have become the target of the Houthis’ arbitrary detentions,” Lassen said.
The war in the poorest country in the Arabian peninsula has triggered the worst humanitarian crisis anywhere in the world, the United Nations says.
It expects things to get worse in 2026 as hungry Yemenis find it even harder to get food and international aid drops off.
