The assault led to Hassaké, that the Kurdish forces are trying to contain, testifies to the gradual resurgence of the Islamic State Organization.
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Three years after the fall of his self-proclaimed caliphate, the Islamic State Organization (EI) continues its destabilization strategy in the territories it has lost in Syria and Iraq, in order to reconstruct its areas of influence. The Jihadist group launched, Thursday, January 20, to Hassaké, in the north-east of Syria administered by the Kurdish forces, its largest military operation since 2019, attacking Ghwayran prison to release detainees. The fights that continued Saturday, have already made several tens of deaths. Quasi simultaneously, the EI led on Friday at dawn, an attack against a military base in the province of Diyala, Iraq, killing eleven military.
The assault on the Ghwayran prison was launched by heavily armed EI fighters. More than a hundred attackers, taken by foreign jihadists, most Iraqis, participated, said Farhad Shami, a spokesman for the Syrian Democratic Forces (FDS), dominant Kurdish. Inside the prison – where nearly 5,000 inmates are, including “Commanders of the Islamic State and among the most dangerous members of the group”, according to Mr. Shami -, prisoners organized at the same time a mutiny, burning blankets and plastics.
An indeterminate number of prisoners took advantage of the explosion of a car trapped in front of the prison and fighting with the Kurdish forces to escape. The fighting continued on Friday in the northern part of the prison, still controlled by detainees, as well as in the Zouhour’s adjoining district, where fighters were entrenched, resulting in the flight of a part of the inhabitants. The FDS announced that they stopped more than 100 escapees. Seven members of the FDS and 28 Islamic Fighters were killed in the clashes, announced Farhad Shami. The last assessment established by the Syrian Observatory of Human Rights is a state of 28 people among the Kurdish forces and the prison guards, 45 among the members of the EI, as well as five civilians killed.
The progression of Kurdish forces in Zouhour has been slowed down by the explosive traps planted in homes by jihadists and the use of residents as human shields, “said Shami. The FDS received support from the Anti-EI International Coalition. The Pentagon spokesman John Kirby confirmed that US forces had led aerial strikes against EI members. On Friday night, the FDS commander Mazloum Abadi announced that his forces had managed to thwart the attack and that all escapees had been arrested. However, Farhad Shami affirmed Saturday that “fighting is held on the north side of the prison”, and evoked “an exceptional situation inside and around the establishment”.
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