Kurdish forces, backed by the United States in Syria, said on Wednesday January 26 that they had regained control of a large prison attacked by the Islamic State (IS) group. It was the largest attack launched by IS since its territorial defeat in Syria almost three years ago by Kurdish forces.
Farhad Shami, spokesman for the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), announced the resumption of the ” Total control “ from prison by the FDS after the surrender of all the jihadists entrenched in the detention center in the city of Hassaké (north-east).
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (OSDH), based in the United Kingdom but which relies on an extensive network of sources in war-torn Syria, also claimed that the SDF had full control of the prison, located in the self-declared autonomous region of the Syrian Kurds in northern Syria. But the NGO stressed that the FDS continued to comb the prison where jihadists could still be entrenched.
Mutiny and Coordinated Assault
More than a hundred jihadists inside and outside the prison took part in a coordinated assault, launched on January 20, against the prison in the Ghwayran district. Prisoners had mutinied against the guards and served in an armory before taking part in the fighting alongside attackers who had managed to infiltrate the prison.
In six days of violence in and around the prison, 181 people died – 124 jihadists, 50 Kurdish fighters and seven civilians, according to the OSDH. According to the OSDH, an unknown number of jihadists have managed to escape since Thursday.
More than 1,000 jihadists, who were detained or who had infiltrated during the assault on the prison, have surrendered to Kurdish forces since January 20, according to the SDF and the OSDH. The prison housed at least 3,500 jihadists of different nationalities, the OSDH said.
The UN and human rights organizations have also reported hundreds of minors locked up in this former school converted into a detention center. The fate of these minors is not immediately known.
Triggered in March 2011 by the repression of pro-democracy demonstrations, the war in Syria has become more complex over the years with the involvement of regional and international powers and the rise of jihadists. The conflict has killed around 500,000 people, devastated the country’s infrastructure and displaced millions of people.