After a week of clashes with Islamic State (ISIS) militants who attempted a mass prison break at the Sina’a prison in Haseke, northeast Syria, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the major armed force of the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES), has announced on Sunday evening that the operation against the last bits of ISIS resistance in the prison compound was successfully concluded.
The SDF media centre has further announced that the combing operations of the SDF against ISIS groups hiding in Haseke, Raqqa and Dair az-Zor continued, and many locations housing ISIS cells were raided, with dozens of militants captured.
A statement by the United States National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan followed on Sunday on the SDF re-taking full control of the prison.
The statement for the first time clearly indicated that one of the motives behind the ISIS attack that had begun on the 20th of January and which marked the group’s most organised attack since its military defeat in 2019 was ‘the reconstitution of its ranks.’
“The United States commends SDF, who, along with Coalition forces, completed operations to re-take full control of the Hasakah prison in Syria,” Sullivan said.
“Thanks to the bravery and determination of the SDF, many of whom paid the ultimate sacrifice, ISIS failed in its efforts to conduct a large-scale prison break to reconstitute its ranks. The barbarity of ISIS’s actions during this attack reaffirms why this group must be denied the ability to regenerate and why nations must work together to address the thousands of ISIS detainees in inadequate detention facilities. ISIS remains a global threat that requires a global solution. The United States remains committed to working with our partners in Iraq and northeast Syria, and the Defeat-ISIS Coalition, to counter the ISIS threat to our homelands.”
More than 200 ISIS fighters were killed in clashes that ensued after its attack on the prison compound, while more than 30 Kurdish fighters and over 40 civilians and prison workers also lost their lives.
