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After the attack on a Syrian prison by the Islamic State group, fighting between jihadist and Kurdish forces continued. Since Thursday, they have killed nearly 90 people, forcing civilians to flee.
Following violent fighting between Kurds and jihadists, many civilians are forced to flee the region.
AFP
Fighting continued on Saturday for the third consecutive day between the Islamic State (IS) group and Kurdish forces in northeastern Syria, following an attack dlarge-scale jihadist who killed nearly 90 people.
“At least 28 members of the Kurdish security forces, five civilians and 56 IS fighters have been killed” since the start of the attack on Ghwayran prison, one of the largest housing jihadists in Syria, said indicated Rami Abdel Rahmane, director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (OSDH).
On the front line, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), dominated by Kurdish fighters and supported by the international anti-jihadist coalition, defeated IS in Syria in 2019, driving him out of his last stronghold of Baghouz, in the province of Deir Ezzor. Despite his defeat, theth group carries out deadly attacks, particularly in the vast Syrian desert, which extends from the central province of Homs to that of Deir Ezzor, on the border with Iraq.
Escaped by dozens
In the night from Thursday to Friday, the IS launched an assault on this prison located in the city of Hassaké, which houses 3,500 suspected members of its organization, including leaders, said the OSDH. According to the NGO, which has an extensive network of sources in Syria, the jihadists “had seized weapons they had found” in the armory of the detention center.
The OSDH also claimed that the prison was surrounded by Kurdish forces, with the support of the air force of the international coalition, and that hundreds of IS prisoners had been arrested. Dozens of detainees managed to escape following the attack, the largest since the defeat of IS in Syria in 2019.
‘Heavy fighting’ took place in areas north of Ghwayran prison, where raids killed more than 20 IS fighters, according to the SDF, who seized explosive belts, weapons and ammunition . And this fighting triggered an exodus of civilians, who fled the region in the cold.
Need for fighters
On Friday, IS claimed responsibility for the attack on the prison, saying the purpose of the operation was “to free the prisoners”. The group “wants to move beyond its status as a terrorist and criminal network, and to do that it needs more fighters,” said Nicholas Heras of the Newlines Institute in Washington. “Prison breaks represent the best opportunity for IS to regain its strength in arms, and Ghwayran prison is a good target because it is overcrowded…»
Many prisons in Syrian Kurdish-controlled areas, where much of the former IS ‘army’ is held, were originally schools and are therefore ill-suited to hold detainees for long periods of time . According to the Kurdish authorities, who control large areas of northern Syria, 12,000 jihadists of more than 50 nationalities are detained in prisons under their control.
(AFP)