SYRIA (Washington Insider Magazine) – Experts worry that a prison break in Syria involving gunmen and car explosives, the terrorist group’s greatest operation in years, could herald a revival fueled by militants further radicalized in the region’s awful jails.
After an ISIS attack Thursday in Hassakeh, northeast Syria, the Gweiran jail is under siege, with ISIS members holed up indoors and the building encircled by the Kurdish-led, US-allied Syrian Democratic Forces. According to NBC News, intense combat has been confirmed in civilian neighborhoods near where some fugitives are supposed to have gone.
As per the SDF, the prison houses around 3,000 to 4,000 ISIS detainees, including hundreds of minors and foreigners. A spokeswoman indicated something between 400 to 500 convicts escaped at first, but that “most” had been caught.
The actual figure of ISIS militants that took part in the assault, as well as the number of casualties, remains unknown.
On Sunday, the SDF estimated approximately 150 and 200 ISIS fighters, claiming 183 deaths, however, this number includes some ISIS detainees. 27 of the Kurdish group’s members were killed in the combat, according to the Kurdish group.
On Saturday, the ISIS-affiliated Amaq news agency released a statement claiming that the organization had slain 200 Kurdish combatants, including civil staff of the prison.
In 2014, ISIS fighters swept across Iraq and Syria, conquering about 40 percent of Iraq and 35 percent of Syria in a rapid attack that included thousands of radicalized individuals from around the region and the world. The United States and its allies, and also Iranian-backed Iraqi militias, forced a withdrawal.
Ever since, thousands of ISIS militants and their dependents, notably children, have suffered in Syrian and Iraqi prisons in inhumane and humiliating conditions, according to Human Rights Watch.
According to experts, this creates ideal conditions for radicalization – and fresh ISIS recruits.
In other wretched camps in regions they control, Kurdish-led forces detain 100,000 Syrian and migrant children and women who are members of the family of militant suspects.
In a paper released last month, the Royal United Services Institute defense think tank advocated an international special unit to oversee the repatriation of dangerous captives, the trial of ISIS members, and the development of deradicalization initiatives.
Image via BBC