ISIS claims responsibility for assassinations of two Rojava councilwomen

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — The Islamic State (ISIS) group on Monday claimed responsibility for the Friday assassinations of two city council officials in northeast Syria’s Hasaka province, the group published on their Telegram propaganda channel.

Hind Latif al-Khadir was head of the economy committee in the town of Til Shayir, and Sa’da Faysal al-Hermas was co-chair of the town’s people’s council. Both were kidnapped, shot and killed on Friday evening, according to a statement from the Hasaka provincial council, published by Hawar News Agency.

ISIS said they raided the house of the two leaders and killed them with machine guns, saying the officials were affiliated with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which it described as an “apostate” group.

“This heinous crime is targeting free women and democratic values,” Mazloum Abdi, the top commander of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), tweeted on Monday.

“We offer our condolences to the families of the two martyrs and promise our people we will pursue the criminal cells until justice prevails,” he added.

Both women had received death threats from ISIS, according to the UK-based conflict monitor Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Their bodies were found in the town of al-Dashisha, in southern Hasaka province.

Women have risen to prominent public roles under the Kurdish-led administration in northeast Syria. Every council and government office is gender-balanced with male and female co-leaders. Women have also made advancements economically and an all-female armed force gained international recognition in the war against ISIS.

In 2019, Hevrin Khalaf, leader of the Future Syria Party, was executed by Turkish-backed militia groups.

According to ISIS’s propaganda agency Amaq, the terror group carried out 593 attacks in Syria in 2020, killing and injuring 1,327 people, with the highest number of killed and injured recorded in eastern Syria’s Deir Ez-Zor.

According to Rojava Information Centre, Deir ez-Zor is the focal point of ISIS attacks in north and east Syria, with 73% of March attacks taking place in the province.

ISIS, which seized control of swathes of Iraq and Syria in 2014, was declared defeated in late 2017 and early 2019 in Iraq and Syria respectively. However, remnants of the group have returned to their earlier insurgency tactics, ambushing security forces, kidnapping and executing suspected informants, and extorting money from vulnerable rural populations.

The SDF in Deir ez-Zor province in July launched a new phase of their operation against ISIS remnants in the eastern Syrian province.

Somewhere between 3,000-5000 suspected ISIS prisoners from around 50 nationalities are held in Sanaa prison in Hasaka’s Geweran neighborhood, most of whom were detained by Kurdish and coalition forces in the last ISIS stronghold of Baghouz in March 2019.

The SDF has released large numbers of ISIS suspects in recent months.