SOHR: SDF assumes complete control over Hasaka prison

The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) on Sunday announced that they have fully secured al-Sina’a prison in Hasaka, northeast Syria (Rojava), following a week-long standoff with the Islamic State (ISIS) group, with the large-scale conflict having killed at least 322 people.

“As part of the large-scale sweeping campaign launched by our forces against ISIS, we announce the end of the sweep campaign in al-Sina’a prison in Ghweran neighborhood of Hasaka, and the end of the last pockets in which ISIS militants were holed up in the [prison’s] northern dormitories,” the Kurdish-led force said in a statement.

The US-led Coalition’s Special Operations Joint Task Force-Levant (SOJTF-Levant) on Sunday said in a tweet that the detainees “were relocated into an enhanced and hardened facility preventing further Daesh [ISIS] escape.”

“This was a huge ISIS failure that ultimately sped up the clock to ensuring that the detainees are in a hardened facility from which they will never escape,” Isaac Peltier, commander of SOJTF-Levant said.

Despite the SDF having declared previously, it said that 60 to 90 ISIS militants were resisting in the northern part of the prison. The Kurdish force had called for their safe surrender, promising “firm” implications in case of further resistance.

In light of the SDF’s statement, the group also declared that they had arrested nine suspected ISIS members in the town of Hajin in Deir ez-Zor province.

According to the SDF, communication devices and documents were seized proving the member’s intentions to carry out terrorist attacks in the future.

These developments come after the terror group’s major attack on the al-Sina’a prison in Hasaka on January 21. While the organization is fully devoid of territorial control, its daring attacks across Iraq and Syria are raising significant concern about its capabilities.

The terror group’s failed incursion in the Hasaka prison has resulted in the deaths of 322 people according to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR). Among them are 246 ISIS members, 79 security forces (Asayish) and prison guards, and seven civilians.

ISIS seized control of swathes of territory in Iraq and Syria, declaring a so-called caliphate in 2014, but the terror group was declared territorially defeated in 2017 and 2019 respectively.

On Thursday, the SDF called on the international community to accelerate repatriation efforts of their ISIS-affiliated nationals.