Islamic State boasts of daring prison attack in northeast Syria

Fazel Hawramy

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The pickup truck reverses and smashes into the concrete wall behind it, causing a section to break, leaving a hole that reveals the scene of devastation inside an ad-hoc detention facility in the south of Hasaka province housing hardcore Islamic State (ISIS) militants. Military vehicles belonging to the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) are aflame, and smoke can be seen rising around the compound. Cries of “Allah Akbar” can be heard each time the vehicle reverses. A militant steps forward and holds his mobile phone to film the scene inside the facility. 

Several videos like this, of Friday's audacious and sophisticated attack on the al-Sina'a prison in Hasaka’s Ghweran neighborhood in northeast Syria, known to locals as Ghweran prison, have circulated on social media for the last four days since a group of around two hundred ISIS militants snuck into the neighborhood surrounding the prison and attacked the facility where thousands of ISIS members are held by the SDF. 

“Around 30 fighters scattered in our houses and told me that if I said anything, they would kill me and my family, they spoke in Iraqi dialect, they were Iraqis, they seized the mobile phones from people, we saw them on the roof,” a resident of Ghweran neighborhood told a Rudaw reporter on Friday as he fled along with hundreds of others.

The videos of the attack have been shared hundreds, if not thousands, of times on social media sites including Telegram, Facebook and Instagram. One account posted the video on Saturday night which was shared by 173 people as of Sunday lunchtime, attracting 124 comments and 400 emojis including red hearts, thumbs up, and kisses. “Oh god, may they be victorious,” one user commented on the video.  

Facebook users who have shared the videos are not new to the platform. One user, Abdullah Beanas Faqir, highlighted a Telegram channel that posts ISIS material. Sifting through his Facebook page, it is clear that Abdullah is an ardent supporter of ISIS. In September, he posted an update on how Muslim women are in the prison of the infidels, referring to the SDF, and how he wished that Allah would facilitate their escape.

The gory videos of the attack display the importance that ISIS militants attach to the power of propaganda in order to mobilize their followers and entice others to join their cause via popular social networking sites.

A 2020 study by the Combating Terrorism Center found that three considerations drive jihadi prison assaults and riots. “In planning these types of attacks, jihadis are interested in restoring their force size, releasing incarcerated jihadi leaders or specialists, and/or creating a propaganda win,” the institution stated. “Prison assaults and riots are opportunistic. Jihadis exploit profound weaknesses in prison system management, resources, intelligence, and wherewithal in order to conduct attacks."

The video, a little under two minutes in total, displays the inside of the prison where some men appear to be using clubs to hit the guards in a hallway opening up to the cells. Several ISIS militants are shown in battle gear, wielding AK47s, with their faces covered as they aim the guns at around a dozen men in the corner. One militant drags what appeared to be an SDF fighter onto the floor and, from there, to the corner. Dozens of prisoners are out of their cells, as loud shouts and the sound of muffled bullets are heard. The camera pans to the left where it shows the bodies of purportedly SDF fighters piled up in the corner. 

The SDF, which holds 10,000 ISIS militants, 8,000 Iraqis and Syrians and 2,000 foreign fighters in 14 detention facilities, mostly in Hasaka and Shaddadi, have said that 17 of their men were killed and many more were wounded, some badly. Videos show dozens of ISIS prisoners who escaped being recaptured by the SDF with the backing of the US-led international coalition. A new video released by ISIS on Telegram on Saturday night shows around two dozen men who identify themselves as SDF fighters captured by the terror group - most of whom are Arab fighters of the Kurdish led army.  

According to the international coalition, 61 percent of the detainees are held in two facilities in the Hasaka province. "Both are repurposed, ad-hoc facilities,” the coalition’s July-September 2021 report on Operation Inherent Resolve states, and the prisons are in the receipt of coalition funds for "improved security, capacity, and conditions."

Riots inside prisons in northeast Syria are not something new. Back in 2020, ISIS prisoners rioted on one occasion and a number escaped on another, both from a prison in Hasaka. The escapees were later recaptured. This latest attack on Ghweran is far more sophisticated and audacious, and reminiscent of large scale prison breaks from Iraq prior to the group capturing large swathes of Iraqi territory in 2014.

ISIS has also become more brazen in recent months in its hit-and-run attacks in Iraq. On one night alone in December, ISIS militants killed seven peshmerga fighters and three civilians in an attack in the Makhmour area, close to Erbil in the Kurdistan Region.

On Friday, as the militants took over the prison, a unit of the Iraqi army was wiped out by the militants in Diyala province.

The attack has made Iraqi and Kurdish officials across the border worried. Kurdistan Region Prime Minister Masrour Barzani said on Sunday that he has directed Peshmerga and police forces to shore up their defenses along the border with northeast Syria.  

The anti-ISIS coalition in Syria have assisted the SDF to repel the attack and recapture the escapees. In Iraq, coalition officials were more upbeat about the capabilities of Iraqi forces to defend themselves. “The distance and the capability of the Iraqi border guards, the Peshmerga and the Iraqi army, there is enough security and enterprise to prevent any threat from them crossing into Iraq,” Director of the Military Advisory Group in Iraq for the US-led coalition Nick Duchich told Rudaw’s Ranja Jamal on Sunday.

Fighting continues in the south of Hasaka to recapture hundreds of militants who fled the detention facility in Friday’s attack. More than 4,000 people have been displaced as a result of the ensuing battle.