ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – A car bomb exploded early Saturday morning in the Syrian city of Hasaka, close to a prison housing thousands of Islamic State (ISIS) prisoners, according to the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
The bombing struck near Geweran prison in Hasaka, the capital of the eponymous province. The jail "holds thousands of ISIS prisoners," the SDF tweeted.
The SDF said ISIS is taking advantage of Turkey's military offensive into northeastern Syria that has drawn the Kurdish-led local forces focus to the border and away from the ongoing fight against the terror organization.
Five militants escaped a prison in Qamishli on Friday. The SDF blamed Turkish shelling for the security breach. ISIS claimed responsibility for a car bombing in the same city that killed four civilians and injured nine.
Turkey on Wednesday launched its Operation Peace Spring against Kurdish forces in northeastern Syria, framing its offensive as a counter-terrorism effort to push the SDF, which Turkey accuses of having ties to the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), away from the border and make space to settle as many as two million Syrian refugees.
The SDF, which was the US-led coalition's partnered ground force in the war against ISIS in Syria, is holding tens of thousands of militants and supporters in detention centres and camps. The spokesperson for the force said they can no longer be responsible for the ISIS detainees while Ankara carries out demographic change to eradicate Kurds from northeastern Syria.
"We are currently subject to a genocidal attack. There is a project to make a demographic change and eradicate Kurds," Mustafa Bali, SDF spokesperson told Rudaw on Friday.
He warned that the Turkish incursion has turned SDF's focus to the protection of Kurdish rights, rather than worrying about ISIS: "Therefore, our first duty is the protection of our people, border and soil."
This conflict could pave the way for the resurgence of ISIS in Syria, according to a new report by the International Crisis Group (ICG).
"Conflict between Turkey and the SDF along the Syrian-Turkish border almost certainly will relieve pressure on ISIS, which lost its last territorial foothold in eastern Syria in May 2019 but persists as a deadly insurgency," read the report published on Friday.
It called on the US and its allies to make Turkey stop its military action: "Most urgently, the U.S. and its allies should work to convince Turkey to halt its invasion of the north east, which could damage Turkey's international political standing and its domestic security."
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