Four members of the Islamic State (ISIS), including the leader of a cell, have been arrested during two security operations in Syria, announced Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) on Sunday.
The SDF also said that the anti-terror unit’s operations in eastern Syria’s Deir ez-Zor seized weapons, technical equipment and documents.
The Kurdish-led forces’ internal security units cooperated with residents in the area during the operations, the SDF said.
The Global Coalition against Daesh (ISIS) announced on Sunday that a weapons smuggler affiliated to ISIS had been captured in Deir ez-Zor during an early morning raid on Friday.
“SDF -advised, assisted and enabled by Coalition Forces- planned and achieved the successful capture of Eid Hasan Hamoud al-Fahd, an assessed ISIS operative and known weapons and ammunition smuggler,” the coalition said in a statement.
The SDF and its armed units People’s Defence Units (YPG) form the backbone of the US-led coalition.
The SDF also captured an ISIS logistics operative on Thursday in Syria’s Hasakah province near Kurdish-controlled Rojava in northeast and arrested four members of the jihadist group last Monday in Raqqa, the former capital of the self-proclaimed ISIS caliphate, seized by the US-backed SDF forces in 2017.
“Since the beginning of this year in Iraq – so that’s 1 January to the first week of April – we have seen a record 68 percent reduction in attacks when compared to the same period last year. In Syria, where our partners – the Syrian Democratic Forces – continue to lead the fight against Daesh, we recorded a 55 percent decrease during the same time from last year,” said Commander Major General Matthew McFarlane of the Combined Joint Task Force last Monday.
