US pullout could revive IS in Syria

BEIRUT — The American pullback from parts of northeastern Syria could help breathe new life into the Islamic State group if fighting erupts between the Kurds and Turkey.

Syrian Kurdish authorities are already struggling to guard IS fighters captured during the long US-backed campaign against the militants and to keep a lid on IS supporters and family members thronging displacement camps.

Their hold will suffer even more if they are fighting Turkey.

The White House has said Turkey will take over responsibility for the thousands of imprisoned fighters. But it is not clear how that will happen, if it all, given that the Kurdish forces are Turkey’s nemesis.

Turkey is sending troops along the border in preparation for an offensive against the Syrian Kurds. Ankara has said it wants to impose a zone of control potentially 30 kilometres (19 miles) deep that would stretch the length of the border. The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces have vowed to fight back.

Here is a look at what is at stake and why IS stands to gain.

Angered by the sudden pullback of US troops, Kurdish officials sounded the alarm that, to fight any Turkish assault, they will have to divert their forces away from guarding IS prisoners.

That raises security concerns at a time when the Islamic State group’s leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, has called on followers to do all they can to free captured fighters held in jails and families living in camps.

Kurdish authorities run more than two dozen detention facilities, scattered around northeastern Syria, holding about 10,000 IS fighters. Among the detainees are some 2000 foreigners, including about 800 Europeans.

Most of the facilities are unidentified and unmarked, some of them set up in abandoned or repurposed buildings; others are mobile “pop-up prisons”. Some are reportedly close to the border, which may make them vulnerable to being hit in clashes or bombardment.

Guarding those facilities has long been a strain on the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces as it juggles multiple tasks in the volatile area. The US-led coalition has said the force doesn’t have the capacity to detain thousands of fighters on its own — and the coalition may be helping to hold some of the most high-level militants.

Handling the prisons while defending against Turkish troops will be even more difficult.

“How will I even protect these facilities?” Abdulkarim Omar, a senior Kurdish official, said. “The Turkish attack is an existential threat. (The Kurdish) forces will be busy with fending it off.”

Picture: AP US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) fighters stand guard next to men waiting to be screened after being evacuated out of the last territory held by Islamic State group militants, near Baghouz, eastern Syria.

Picture: AP Women speak to guards at the gate that closes off the section for foreign families who lived in the Islamic State’s so-called caliphate, at Al-Hol camp in Hasakeh province, Syria.

Picture: AP Women shop in the marketplace at Al-Hol camp, home to families of Islamic State fighters, in Hasakeh province, Syria.