The two suspects were captured in an operation carried out in rural Deir ez-Zor province by SDF’s anti-terror units, SDF-linked Hawar News Agency (ANHA) reported on Saturday.
They are accused of kidnapping and shooting dead two Rojava municipal employees, Hind Latif al-Khadir and Sa’da Faysal al-Herman, on January 22.
ISIS claimed responsibility for their assassination, saying they raided the women’s homes and shot them with machine guns, accusing the women of affiliation with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which ISIS describes as an “apostate” group.
Both women had received death threats from ISIS, according to the UK-based conflict monitor Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Their bodies were found in the town of al-Dashisha, in southern Hasaka province.
ISIS was declared territorially defeated in Iraq in December 2017 and in Syria in March 2019, but remains active in areas across Iraq and Syria.
In the last three months of 2020, ISIS claimed 101 attacks across Syria, mainly in areas controlled by the regime and the SDF, according to the US-led coalition against ISIS. While the number of attacks was down from the same period the year before, the Pentagon said that ISIS is trying to stir up trouble between Kurds and Arabs.
“ISIS continued its tactic of assassinating military and civilian leaders in SDF areas in an attempt to exacerbate tensions between the Arab population and the Kurdish-led SDF authorities… ISIS was able to operate clandestinely in SDF territory by exploiting ethnic tensions and intimidating the local population,” read the most recent Pentagon report on anti-ISIS operations, released on February 9.
Earlier this month, the SDF announced the arrest of tens of ISIS suspects in Deir ez-Zor during the first day of a new military operation launched in retaliation for the assassination of the two women.
The SDF has conducted multiple operations against ISIS sleeper cells, often in coordination with the global coalition against ISIS.
