“As part of the ongoing efforts to enhance security and stability in our areas, our security forces carried out a large-scale security campaign east of Raqqa … resulting in the arrest of 27 people, some of whom belonged to these [ISIS] cells and other criminals in the area,” the Asayish said in a statement.
The arrests come as ISIS cells attempt to exploit the security vacuum created in parts of the country after the downfall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime, particularly in desert areas which the former regime used to loosely control.
ISIS rose to power and seized swathes of Iraqi and Syrian land amid a brazen offensive in 2014, declaring a so-called “caliphate”.
Though the jihadists no longer control any territory, they continue to pose a security risk by carrying out kidnappings, hit-and-run attacks, and bombings, and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), who control Rojava, conduct frequent operations against the group.
The Kurdish-led and US-backed SDF fought the lion’s share of the battle against ISIS and arrested thousands of the group’s fighters along with their wives and children when they crushed ISIS territorially and took the group’s last stronghold in Syria in 2019.
After the fall of Assad’s regime, the US-led coalition against ISIS and the SDF have sought to keep the militants from regaining their footing in the new Syria.
On Thursday, two SDF fighters were killed in separate attacks by ISIS in the eastern Deir ez-Zor province.
