ReportingWith more than 370 prisoners and assailants dead and more than 120 in the ranks of the Syrian Democratic Forces, the jihadist attack, although defeated, recalled the strike force that the Islamic State organization retains in Syria.
When Farhan Ubaid Al-Hussein began his work in the cemetery of the martyrs of Hasakah in 2015, there were only a few rows of graves. Since then, the place, where the fighters of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the masters of this region of northeastern Syria, have spread out on all sides, over several hundred meters. “Today, there is talk of the authorities buying the land around to further enlarge the cemetery »explains the man who observes, out of the corner of his eye, the groups of women, men and children gathered around certain tombs.
On this Thursday in February, these are the families of the soldiers who fell in the fighting to repel the attack by the Islamic State organization (IS) against the Al-Sinaa prison in Hassaké, at the end of January. “We built five more graves because in the morgue there are five unidentified bodies”explains Farhan, the gravedigger, pointing to the freshly dug holes in the ground.
The battle lasted ten days. It mobilized not only troops from the SDF, a Kurdish-dominated coalition, but also American and British special forces, which carried out airstrikes. It was the longest and deadliest confrontation against the Islamic State (IS) organization since the fighting to retake the last stronghold of the jihadists, in Baghouz, Syria, in 2019.
The toll is very heavy: 374 prisoners and assailants killed, more than 120 victims on the side of the FDS and prison staff, announced the Kurdish authorities after the resumption of the prison on January 31. “We believe that around ten prisoners are now on the run”, argues, on February 10, the commander of the FDS, Newroz Ahmed, met in Hassaké. Others familiar with the case speak of several dozen detainees on the run.
The Syrian army “too fragmented” against the IS
Although defeated, the assault on Al-Sinaa prison confirms that IS has retained a very high capacity for harm, in particular through its sleeper cells, scattered in northeastern Syria. “Daesh has maintained a central structure, it is able to mobilize fighters both in Syria and in Iraq, to launch a large-scale military operation, affirms Patrick Haenni, researcher at the European University Institute in Florence and at the Center for Humanitarian Dialogue. The beating heart of IS’s resurgence on a regional scale is in the desert regions south of the Euphrates that the Syrian army and its fragmented militias are increasingly unable to control », adds–he.
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