ISIS militants riot in Syrian prison

BEIRUT — Militants from the Islamic State rioted in a northeast Syria prison Sunday, a month after similar violence at the facility allowed four extremists to escape, an opposition war monitor and a Kurdish activist collective said.

Kurdish forces sent reinforcements to the prison in eastern Hassakeh province and U.S. military helicopters flew overhead, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, and the North Press Agency, a media platform operating in the Kurdish-administered areas.

Kurdish authorities operate more than two dozen detention facilities scattered across northeastern Syria, holding about 10,000 Islamic State fighters. Among the detainees are some 2,000 foreigners whose home countries have refused to repatriate them, including about 800 Europeans.

Further details were not immediately available on the scale of the riot, and it was not clear if the unrest was triggered by concerns about the coronavirus’s potential spread in the prison.

In late March, two days of riots broke out at the same facility when former Islamic State members began knocking down doors and making holes in the walls between cells. Four prisoners escaped but were caught a day later.

The riots were put down by the Kurdish-led, U.S.backed Syrian Democratic Forces. Afterward, the group’s top commander, Mazloum Abdi, urged the home countries of foreign fighters to find a solution for the prisoners.

The Islamic State was defeated a year ago when the Syrian Democratic Forces seized control of the last sliver of land controlled by the extremists in eastern Syria. But a resurgence of Islamic State attacks in both Syria and Iraq has raised concerns that the militant group is taking advantage of the focus on tackling the coronavirus pan