Islamic State prison revolt quashed in Syria

BEIRUT — Kurdish-led forces Monday put down a mutiny at a northeastern Syria prison for former Islamic State fighters after militants complaining about their conditions seized control of parts of the facility.

The U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces said the riot was quelled by Monday night, more than 24 hours after prisoners smashed doors, broke down walls and took over at least one wing of the prison.

“Due to great efforts made by our forces & swift intervention against the insubordination of ISIS detainees inside one prison, we were able to avoid catastrophe & take control. No prisoners escaped,” Syrian Democratic Forces leader Gen. Mazloum Abdi said on his Twitter account.

The prison revolt was the most serious yet by the thousands of former Islamic State fighters detained in prisons across northeastern Syria, typically in cramped, crowded conditions that have drawn criticisms from human rights groups.

This mutiny coincided with mounting fears across the region that the coronavirus will arrive in the war-ravaged area, with potentially devastating consequences in the crowded prisons. U.S. officials say that about 10,000 foreign fighters from dozens of nations and family members are being held in detention centers and camps across the area, along with tens of thousands of Syrians and Iraqis.

Kurdish officials have long warned that they lack the resources to indefinitely detain such a large number of people and have urged governments around the world to repatriate their nationals who volunteered to join the Islamic State. Most countries have refused to do so, fearing that the former fighters would pose a security threat.

Mazloum said the unrest demonstrated the need for the international community to help resolve the burden on the Kurdish authorities left to manage the captured fighters. “Our allies must find a quick radical solution to this international problem,” he tweeted.

The revolt began Sunday night at a prison in Hasakah, which houses about 5,000 Islamic State fighters of multiple nationalities who were captured after the group’s final stand in the village of Baghouz, Kurdish officials and local journalists said.

“The ISIS terrorists managed to take over the first floor in Hasaka prison,” wrote Syrian Democratic Forces spokesman Mustafa Bali on his Twitter account. “Some of them managed to escape and our forces are searching to capture them.” Syrian Democratic Forces officials later said that all the prisoners were accounted for.

Col. Myles Caggins, a spokesman for the international coalition, said the U.S.led force provided the Syrian Democratic Forces with aerial surveillance to look for escapees and monitor for any signs that might indicate a “larger conspiracy.”

Video footage posted by a journalist at the scene earlier Monday showed members of the Kurdish-led militia creeping around outside the prison wall. The prisoners seized control of a section of the prison after they disabled surveillance cameras, broke down metal doors and used them to smash down walls between the prison cells. “The mutiny is still ongoing,” the journalist said.

Surveillance video footage from inside the prison Sunday night showed prisoners wearing orange uniforms tightly crammed together in one of the prison cells and holding up a sign appealing for intervention by international humanitarian and coalition forces to alleviate their conditions.

Previous footage from the prison cells, seen by Washington Post reporters during a visit last year, showed men packed together so tightly that they tripped over one another as they tried to move across the rooms.