Continued fighting in Syrian Hassakeh as SDF attacks ISIL hideouts | Syrian War News

Clashes between Kurdish-led forces and ISIL (ISIS) militants who attacked a series of prisons in northeastern Syria are ongoing, despite earlier announcements that the attack had been stopped.

Fighting resumed on Saturday around the prison between the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and ISIL members who were hiding in the area, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

According to a UK war monitor based on a network of sources inside Syria, ISIL took four local fighters and a civilian hostage hostage for hours in a residential building near the prison. Later, Kurdish forces released guerrillas and killed three ISIL gunmen.

Attackers Ghwayran was sent to a large prison On January 20, a complex near the city of Hassakeh erupted, sparking heavy fighting that killed 270 people.

The SDF announced this he recovered from prison on Wednesday, but “clean-up operations” continued. About 3,500 ISIL members surrendered, but others were barricaded inside the prison.

The Syrian Observatory said they were “in the cellar with airstrikes or infiltrations that are difficult to infiltrate.” SDF officials estimate that between 60 and 90 ISIL fighters are still in the basement and on the ground floor.

Twenty on Saturday they surrendered, the Syrian Observatory said, adding that the SDF had killed five others in a shootout inside the prison.

Kurdish forces have repeatedly called on ISIL to surrender to armed forces. “Our forces have not used force against them so far,” Farhad Shami, head of the SDF’s media office, told AFP.

Shami said the bodies of the fighters would be buried in “remote dedicated areas” under SDF control.

The violence prompted 45,000 people to flee Hassakeh at the UN. Many took refuge in the homes of relatives and slept in hundreds of other mosques and wedding halls in the city.

Neighbors say ISIL’s latest operations have only confirmed what they have known and feared for months.

“It simply came to our notice then. Then all of a sudden, everything is turned upside down again, ”a Syrian man told the Associated Press, citing his anonymity for fear of his own safety.

They are “everywhere,” he said, adding that fighters mostly operate at night in attacks on military posts or in direct killings of speeding motorbikes.

“He always hits and runs away,” he said. “Everyone is afraid of murder. They have a reputation, they have a reputation. They will never go. ‘

On its online channel Aamaq, ISIL has released videos of the prison attack in an intensified propaganda campaign while praising other operations. The goal is to recruit new members and “reactivate existing networks across the region,” according to an analysis by security consultancy Soufan Group.

Dareen Khalifa, a senior Syrian analyst at the International Crisis Group, said the SDF’s dependence on ISIL’s “unforeseen US presence” to fight ISIL is one of its biggest challenges.

He described the SDF as “a lame duck” that makes its neighbors reluctant to cooperate with attacks on ISIL or to give intelligence to cells, after the group threatened or killed many alleged collaborators in the past.

In addition, the Kurdish authorities’ claim that the region and its mixed population should be able to govern and provide services “has taken a hit in 2021 as economic conditions in the area deteriorate,” Khalifa said.

Rise in attacks

The fighting has raised concerns about the fate of some of the non-governmental organizations 700 children of ISIL fighters in prison, which the SDF calls the “caliphate of the Caliphate.”

The SDF has called on the UN to call on countries with national ISILs detained in Syria to “speed up the rate of repatriation”, especially children and women.

UN Under-Secretary-General Vladimir Voronkov he told the Security Council the deadly prison siege on Thursday underscored the need to confront those allegedly linked to the armed group in prisons and camps in northeastern Syria.

ISIL lost in March 2019 its last piece of land near Baghouz in eastern Syria. Since then, he has largely gone underground and fought a low-level battle, with roadside bombings, murders and assaults, mostly against security forces.

In eastern Syria, fighters have carried out 342 operations in the past year, including numerous attacks on Kurdish-led forces, the Syrian Observatory says.

The Hassakeh prison breach was still the most sophisticated operation. The armed group was part of the latest rise in attacks that have sparked fears that it is gaining strength in Syria and Iraq.

A few hours after the attack began on January 20, ISIL’s weapons were fired in Iraq he entered a barracks In the mountains north of Baghdad, a guard was killed and 11 soldiers were shot dead while they were sleeping.

The attacks were the most daring since the group, with the help of a US-led international coalition in 2019, lost its last piece of territory, leaving much of Iraq and Syria devastated after years of war.

Economic collapse, lack of governance, and growing ethnic tensions are revolutionizing the gains of US-led coalitions in a poor region.