An unnamed U.S. official told Reuters on Tuesday that “about 200 low-level Islamic State fighters” escaped from the al-Shaddadi prison camp on Monday after the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) withdrew from the facility.
This estimate was substantially higher than the 120 escapees estimated by the central Syrian government, but much lower than the 1,500 inmates that could have fled the facility under the SDF’s worst-case estimates.
According to the U.S. official, the population of the al-Shaddadi camp was greatly reduced when about 600 foreign ISIS fighters were transferred to other camps before hostilities broke out between the SDF and forces loyal to the central government.
Officials in Damascus said many of the escapees were quickly recaptured by the Syrian army, a claim supported by the U.S. official who spoke to Reuters.
As with most aspects of the conflict between the SDF and Damascus, accounts of the prison break differ between the two sides. The Syrian Interior Ministry on Tuesday accused the SDF of irresponsibly withdrawing from camps full of dangerous ISIS inmates and deliberately setting some of them free, to put pressure on the central government.
The SDF has, in turn, accused jihadi paramilitary groups working for the central government of deliberately freeing ISIS prisoners.
The central government’s Defense Ministry said on Tuesday it was prepared to assume full control of all the ISIS prison camps previously administered by the SDF, including the massive facility at al-Hol where the wives and children of many captive ISIS terrorists have been living for years.
The Defense Ministry also promised not to provoke the SDF by entering Kurdish villages. In turn, Defense Minister Maj. Gen. Murhaf Abu Qasra on Wednesday urged the SDF to stop arbitrarily arresting civilians in Hasakah Province, their region of influence.
Qasra said these arrests “pose a serious threat to the ceasefire as a whole,” and called on the SDF to “release all detainees without delay.”
The arrests Qasra referred to were apparently an effort by the SDF to neutralize non-Kurdish Arab militias that were previously part of the SDF coalition.
When the SDF began to crumble under attack from central government forces, some Arab tribes in Hasakah defected and began taking control of their own territory. The SDF, its military strength boiled down to Kurdish militias like the People’s Protection Units (YPG) and Women’s Protection Units (YPJ), worried that the Arabs could weaken their already tenuous strategic position.
Conversely, Arabs and Assyrian Christians living in the area are worried about the Kurds growing hostile towards them.
The ceasefire agreement reached on Monday gave the SDF four days to resolve any outstanding issues and begin fully integrating with the central Syrian government and military. The SDF, a Kurdish-led alliance that worked with the U.S. and Western powers against the Islamic State during the Syrian civil war, has accused the Damascus government of using military force and brutal tactics to seize Kurdish territory and force the SDF to surrender.
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