Jan 19 (Reuters) – Forces affiliated with the Syrian government attacked the Shadadi prison in Hasaka, northeastern Syria, where thousands of Islamic State militants are said to be held, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces said on Monday.
The SDF said it confronted attackers in Shadadi and repeatedly fought them off, but dozens of fighters were killed. The Kurdish group said the U.S.-led coalition had not intervened despite repeated calls for help.
Earlier, the SDF said it had also clashed with Syrian government forces near Aktan prison on the outskirts of Raqqa, another prison where ISIS prisoners are held. Raqqa was once the center of the group’s short-lived “caliphate.”
The SDF described the clashes as a “highly dangerous development” and warned that any occupation of prisons by government forces “could have serious security implications, threaten stability and pave the way for the return of chaos and terrorism”.
The Syrian Defense Ministry denied that government forces had attacked the prison. It said its forces had arrived in Aktan and began “protecting” the facility and its surrounding areas. The ministry said in a statement that the military did not enter Shadadi prison.
The Syrian army also blamed the SDF for the release of Islamic State detainees from Shadadi prison. It is said that after security checks, the prison will be handed over to the Ministry of Interior.
The SDF said nine militants were killed and 20 wounded in clashes around Al-Aqtan.
Responsibility for prisons housing Islamic State detainees was supposed to be transferred to the Syrian government under a comprehensive integration deal reached with Damascus on Sunday.
After days of fighting with government forces, the SDF, once a major U.S. ally in Syria, agreed on Sunday to withdraw troops from two majority-Arab provinces it has controlled for years, including oil fields.
Syrian government forces on Monday tightened control over swathes of the north and east that the SDF suddenly relinquished, a dramatic shift that strengthens President Ahmed Sala’s rule.
In Raqqa, government internal security forces and military police set up checkpoints and checked identification documents. Security sources said the city had been cleared of SDF fighters overnight.
(Reporting by Jana Choukeir, Maya Gebeily, Menna Alaa El-Din, Jaidaa Taha and Ahmed Elimam; Editing by Alex Richardson, Mark Heinrich and Ros Russell)
