The news does not flow in the prison Al Sinain northeastern Syria, run by fighters from the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the Kurdish-majority paramilitary militia that has played a decisive role in the defeat of Islamic State (ISIS, in its acronym in English) in the Arab country. As a team from a Canadian television station recently confirmed during a visit, at least officially, no one, neither guards nor management personnel, have informed the inmates, all of them alleged members of the ultraradical armed force defeated in 2019, that Bashar al-Assad’s regime has dissolved like a sugar in a glass of water, and that in Damascus, a provisional government emerged from the opposition ranks has begun its functions amidst enormous difficulties.
The reason is simple: The center houses about 5,000 former militants of ISIS, a contingent described as a “Terrorist Army under detention” by the retired general Joseph Votelin front of the Central Command American between 2016 and 2019, the peak years in the fight against the multinational extremist militia. His comrades-in-arms still at large could try to storm the prison and free these thousands of men, most of whom remain loyal to the Islamic State. Something that, in addition, already happened for a week two years ago, achieving the release of hundreds of prison inmates. “I am very worried,” Votel admitted in statements to ‘Politico’.
“ISIS is definitely trying to use the Assad’s defeat and the current instability in Syria as an opportunity to expand its influence in the country,” Gabriella Tejeda, associate researcher at The Soufan Center, an independent think tank specialized in global security issues, assures EL PERIÓDICO in an email. “The (current) situation gives ISIS greater room for maneuver, especially if the kurdish guards must be removed from prisons as a result of the conflict with Türkiye,” Tejeda continues.
And it is precisely this war within the syrian war the one that greatly worries USA and its allies, main sponsors of the SDF. The American and French diplomacy are being used extensively in recent days to deactivate the tension with Ankarawhich considers the Kurdish militia as “terrorists” and bombs it with its aircraft within the third of Syrian territory under its control. For their part, pro-Turkish Syrian ‘proxies’ are carrying out ground military operations in the north, forcing them to retire of territories that they governed until recently. So far, rumors of a ceasefire have not materialized, while the Turkish Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdoganhas demanded Western allies withdraw support for Kurdish militias now that the Assad regime no longer exists.
ISIS Capabilities
Islamic State is still alive, although diminished, in Syria. It currently has “a few thousand combatants” capable of carrying out “guerrilla tactics“like”ambushesattacks with snipers y assaults followed by escape,” analyzes Tejada. During the year that is now ending, The Soufan Center has counted around 700 attacks in which ISIS was involved, a figure that triples the numbers recorded last year; the detailed analysis of these attacks also reveals that the militia has won in “sophistication“, “lethality” y “geographic dispersion“. A reporter on the ground in eastern Syria who prefers to remain anonymous says that in Raqqaa majority Arab city under the control of Kurdish militias, there are “sleeper cells” of ISIS and that in the desert regions of Deir Ezzoralready close to the border with Irakthe ultraradicals “control some bags of territory“.
With these in mind, it is not surprising that the allied coalition led by the US has intensified the campaign of air attacks against ISIS camps and groups in Syria and Iraq since the fall of the Assad regime. Just in the hours immediately after the disintegration of the Baathist regime in Syria, North American forces carried out at least 75 air attacks against ultra-radical militias targets with planes such as the gigantic Boeing B-52 Stratofortress, a long-range strategic bomber, or the F-15 fighters.
The US maintains an impressive military devicewhose main objective is to prevent ISIS from regaining the strength it had in the middle of the last decade. Last Saturday the aircraft carrier arrived in the region USS Harry S. Truman, based in Norfolk (Virginia) with six thousand crew members and nine dozen planes and helicopters on board. She joined a naval force composed of another aircraft carrier, the Carrier Air Wing 1the cruise USS Gettysburg and the destroyers Squadron-98, USS Stout y USS Jason Dunham. Additionally, Pentagon spokesman Maj. Gen. Pat Ryderhas just publicly admitted that the military contingent deployed by the US in Syria is much higher than that announced until now: instead of 900 soldiers, Washington maintains about two thousand.
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