Photo: Civilians fleeing from Baghuz, Syria to an SDF checkpoint in early 2019, after SDF forces took the final ISIS stronghold. (Credit: AFP)
Reports surfaced yesterday that Turkish-backed Islamist militiamen are releasing ISIS detainees from camps in Eastern Syria. US officials who spoke on condition of anonymity later confirmed the reports to multiple media outlets.
The disheartening news came just one day after almost 800 family members of ISIS fighters escaped from the Ain Issa detention camp in Northeast Syria. The breakdown in security at ISIS camps in Syria is raising international concern that the jihadist organization is reemerging after its caliphate was dismantled only months ago. The Kurdish-led SDF led the charge against the Islamic State for 5 years between 2014-2019, proving to be the most effective partner of the US-led Coalition in Syria, and has been responsible for administering over 12,000 ISIS detainees and 100,000 of their family members in several camps across the country. Many of the ISIS detainees are foreigners whose nations of origin refused to repatriate them for prosecution, leaving them in legal limbo in Kurdish territory.
Conditions were already dire in the camps at the beginning of October, before Turkey commenced Operation “Spring of Peace.” The overcrowded facilities lacked basic necessities and the radical Islamic teaching of ISIS was allowed to thrive unchecked. Factionalism, riots and mob justice had already threatened to spiral the camps beyond containment.
When the Turkish army and 14,000 of their militant Islamic Arab allies crossed the border into Northeast Syria on October 8, sleeper operatives of the Islamic State saw their opportunity to exploit the American withdrawal and the shift in the SDF’s focus. A string of bold and well-coordinated attacks followed:
On the same day that the Turkish invasion began, a group of ISIS fighters attacked local security forces at the al-Basel base in al-Raqqa. Despite a heated gun battle and the deployment of several suicide bombers, the attack was successfully repelled. ISIS later claimed responsibility for the fight in the capital of its former caliphate.
A massive vehicle-borne explosive detonated in Qamlishi on October 9, killing 3 and wounding 9 others. ISIS claimed responsibility for the blast in the border town that has served as the de-facto capital of the autonomous Kurdish government in Northeast Syria.
The al-Hol ISIS detainee camp was in an uproar as reports spread of jihaddist cells active in the area on October 11th.
ISIS claimed responsibility for a coordinated bombing and small-arms attack on an SDF checkpoint in Dayr al-Zur on October 14th, killing 4 militiamen.
The reemergence of ISIS in Syria is deeply troubling and distressing to Kurds in Iraq and Syria who fought so hard and sacrificed so much to defeat them. Turkey has a long-standing and well-documented tolerance for the jihadist group’s operation within its borders, even support. We would continue to ask our global partners to pray for a swift end to the Turkish operation, and that the specter of the caliphate would not be allowed to reemerge to threaten Kurdistan once again.
We covet your prayers, first and foremost. If you are also led to donate to the work that FAI is doing among our Kurdish friends and neighbors, you can do so here:
https://www.faimission.org/donate
Sources:
https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/04/12/turkeys-double-isis-standard/
https://www.businessinsider.com/contradicting-trump-us-officials-turkey-backed-forces-released-isis-2019-10
https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/10/14/turkish-backed-forces-freeing-islamic-state-prisoners-syria/
https://twitter.com/IbnSiqilli/status/1183857754034696194
https://twitter.com/IbnSiqilli/status/1183857413004247040
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https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/11/world/middleeast/syria-camp-isis-families-islamic-state-extremism.html