US-backed Syrian forces capture prison from IS after weeklong offensive

Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) troops on Wednesday announced that they have regained control of the last section of a prison which was captured by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant [ISIS] terrorists. As they took over the control of one of the largest detention centers in Syria, the nearly week-long assault by terror operatives in Hassakeh, northern Syria, has come to an end. The prison had been housing several of the Islamic State (ISIS) extremists, as well as the suspected members, the residents, and officials informed The Arab Weekly. 

“The whole prison is now under control,” Farhad Shami, a spokesman for the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces reportedly said. "About 3,000 inmates have surrendered," he added although it was not immediately clear how many among those that surrendered were minors.

In an armed offensive against ISIS that began last week, as many as 70 inmates were killed. ISIS members detonated a car bomb near the prison gates, sources told the on-ground reporters, adding that the incident resulted in scores of prisoners fleeing from the facility into the neighbouring Ghweiran district of al-Hassakeh. Earlier yesterday the Syrian Democratic Forces advanced under the cover of US-led coalition air power in Ghwayran, Hasakah governorate, and launched an attack on more than 100 ISIS members inside the Ghwayran Prison.

It remains unclear if the prison break was part of a centrally coordinated operation, as its timing coincided with the attack in Iraq. Kurdish forces Intelligence revealed that 89 ISIS terrorists were sheltering in the facility. As it targeted the area, 17 of its forces were killed in what is being labelled the deadliest rioting in detention centres.

US-led coalition carried out airstrikes; inmates & kids freed from prison cell 

The US-led coalition carried out airstrikes in support of the SDF as it sought to end the prison break, Pentagon. US coalition troops took over the positions around the prison, and the US-led coalition forces were spotted hovering overhead as the Kurdish forces' counter-attack measures began. ISIS sleeper cells have been involved in some of the most lethal and deadliest attacks against the SDF, and the Syrian government Bashar-al-Assad forces on the west bank of the Tigris River.

“Attacking the detention facility was a top ISIS priority for more than a year,” US State Department spokesman Ned Price said at a White House briefing. “It is a credit to the diligent, capable efforts of the SDF and Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS forces that they were able to thwart numerous attacks during that period and limit the severity of this one," he continued.  “This attack highlights the importance of, and the need to fully fund, the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS’s initiatives to improve the secure and humane detention of ISIS fighters, including by strengthening detention facility security. It also underscores the urgent need for countries of origin to repatriate, rehabilitate, reintegrate, and prosecute, where appropriate, their nationals detained in north-east Syria,” he added.

US forces have long crushed ISIS' territorial control and its stronghold in both Syria and Iraq, where the terrorist organization had declared its “caliphate” but this week, the SDF’s top military commander Mazloum Abadi informed the press that ISIS had  activated and mobilized “its sleeper cells." Farhad Shami, a spokesman for the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, told the journalists on the ground that dozens of ISIS militants had holed up in the prison facility. As the US-led Kurdish forces advanced, dozens of ISIS operatives were captured in nearby buildings. While it remains unclear the number of terrorists captured by the US-led coalition forces, US-based Human Rights Watch says that the SDF has an estimated 12,000 terrorists with ISIS affiliation and 2,000 to 4,000 foreigner males from almost 50 countries to date. 

Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights had reported that US-led forces backed by Washington's armoured vehicles surrounded the prison. Rami Abdurrahman, the head of the Observatory, said SDF took over the buildings near the prison's northern wing after combing the area and capturing the ISIS members. The terrorists were using the children, detainees, as human shields. The operation unfolded as the Kurdish-led administration announced a weeklong curfew in Hassakeh. The US lauded the SDF's response in neutralising ISIS. "It is a credit to the diligent, capable efforts of the SDF and Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS Forces that they were able to thwart numerous attacks during that period and limit the severity of this one," State Department spokesman Ned Price said in a statement.