Islamic State Carnage in Al-Hasakah, Syria

The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces patrolling Hasaka, Syria, on Monday.   Credit...Baderkhan Ahmad/Associated Press

"Responsibility for anything that happens to these children also lies at the door of foreign governments who have thought that they can simply abandon their child nationals in Syria."

"Risk of death or injury is directly linked to these governments’ refusal to take them home."

Sonia Khus, Syria director for Save the Children

 

"We help them to construct their prisons, to train their staff, to run as good a prison system as they can, but they are not getting what they need."

"Prisoners are lying on top of each other."

Anne Speckhard, director, International Center for the Study of Violent Extremism

 

"[The siege highlighted the need for international financial support to improve security at the prison]."

"It also underscores the urgent need for countries of origin to repatriate, rehabilitate, reintegrate and prosecute, where appropriate, their nationals detained in northeast Syria."

U.S. State Department

Fighters of the Syrian Democratic Forces in Hasaka on Monday.   Credit...Ahmed Mardnli/EPA, via Shutterstock

"On whatever support the Coalition has been given to the SDF as they have dealt with this and continue to deal with this prison break, I can tell you that we have provided some air strikes to support them as they deal with this particular prison break," 

Pentagon Spokesman John Kirby

The Kurdish fighting force known as the Syrian Democratic Forces converted an old technical school comprising three buildings into a prison to hold Islamic State foreign fighters. An estimated 40,000 foreign jihadists from Europe, North America, Australia and the Middle East travelled to Syria to join the Islamic State when it was expanding its 'caliphate' in at least a third of the territory of both Syria and Iraq. Prisoners totalled an estimated 12,000 suspected terrorists representing 50 nationalities.

 

Syria and Iraq have taken their own nationals to stand trial and be dealt with, but very few countries outside the Middle East have seen fit to repatriate their nationals to have them stand trial for war crimes. Some countries have accepted orphan children that lived in Raqqa, the ISIL 'capital' of its 'caliphate', to attempt to restore them to normalcy, but the majority feel that hard evidence to be used at trials is too difficult to obtain to allow them to conduct lawful trials and enact lawful criminal punishment.

 

The Kurdish Peshmerga were at the front lines, backed by the United States, fighting Islamic State most effectively. The Syrian and Iraqi militaries were intimidated and fearful of the grim reputation for gross brutality of medieval-style assaults that exemplified Islamic State terrorists. State military forces had a tendency to melt away, leaving their military equipment, much of it supplied by the United States, to be captured by Islamic State as it terrified communities and took possession of larger swaths of land.

 

The Kurdish forces have for years pleaded with countries abroad to take back their nationals. Not only had the Kurds been in the front lines fighting Islamic State, but they were also left to pick up the pieces once the jihadists had been vanquished, their territorial 'caliphate' recovered, their remaining militias dispersed and in hiding. Over the subsequent years they have slowly been recovering, absorbing new recruits attracted to their message of jihadist supremacy, and enacting brief guerrilla skirmishes now and again.

Some of the 300 ISIS fighters who surrendered on Monday in a photo provided by the Syrian Democratic Forces. Credit...Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, via Associated Press

 The Islamic State attack on the prison holding former fighters, many among them high-echelon commanders, is the most ambitious yet of its attack enterprises, with the intention of releasing all the prisoners held at the Ghwayran jail in the city of Al-Hasakah, Thursday. It was a well-orchestrated surprise event, and leading the way was a suicide-bombing truck crashing the prison gates. Once inside the prison Islamic State members set about executing Kurdish guards, and gun battles between the SDF defenders and the ISIS guerrillas ensued.

Boys as young as 12, including Syrians, Iraqis and some 150 non-Arab foreigners are housed in one section of the prison campus. Once teens are considered too old to remain in the detention camps meant to hold families of Islamic State suspects, they are routinely transferred to the prison. Most children were exposed by their parents to the ISIL-jihadi ideology, had seen and identified with atrocities and had themselves taken part.

 

Non-jihadi sensitivities look on at the presence of children in prisons holding terrorists aghast at the situation. For the Islamic State group the imprisoned children represented a strategic convenience to assert that they were their hostages, and would become casualties should the situation call for such a move. Once the jihadist launched their assault on the prison with the intention of releasing thousands of its former fighters they felt they had the upper hand.

 

The fierce response of the Kurdish forces dictated otherwise, and the aerial bombing of the U.S. in aiding the SDF reflected a situation that would be temporary, if costly in human life. Where over 200 people were killed during the clashes. What the Islamic State terrorists did emphasize in this assault was that the loss of their caliphate three years earlier hadn't demoralized and defeated the ideology; it carries on, and its vicious intentions are still as terrifying as they were before their defeat.

 

An American attack helicopter flies over Hasaka on Monday. The United States has been conducting airstrikes there for four days.  Credit...Baderkhan Ahmad/Associated Press

There was a reported 200 'insurgents' and suicide bombers intent on freeing imprisoned jihadists. On Sunday the jihadis attempted to break up a security cordon of SDF fighters north of the prison with the intention of supporting inmates of the prison who were rioting, taking control of portions of the facility. The jihadi commanders within the prison, there would be little doubt, were taking full advantage of the riotous battles taking place outside the complex.

In the first four days of the fighting, 175 ISIL members died, according to Siamand Ali, a spokesman for the SDF, while 27 members of the SDF were killed in the firing scrimmages. During the fighting, fearful villagers evacuated the area. Fleeing ISIL terrorists were invading homes to serve as hiding places, threatening and killing the inhabitants. Kurdish security forces were also busy aiding the civilians in their flight to safety.

Hundreds of the jihadists have been recaptured while dozens remain at loose, according to the London-based Syrian Observatory of Human Rights. Elsewhere in pretrial detention facilities ten thousand terror group members are being held by the Kurdish militia. As for the Hasaka jail, Kurdish authorities have long warned of insufficient resources to secure that number of prisoners in what amounted to makeshift facilities, while awaiting repatriation. 

This photo provided by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces shows some Islamic State group fighters who were arrested.