Although failed, the operation was not long in being signed. The Islamic State group claimed responsibility on Monday for an aborted attack against a headquarters of Kurdish forces housing a prison in the city of Raqqa, its former “capital”.
The assault killed six members of the Kurdish security forces according to the Kurdish Autonomous Administration. Two jihadists were also killed, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (OSDH).
In a statement posted on Telegram, the jihadist group said the attack was aimed at “revenging Muslim prisoners”, including female jihadists incarcerated in the Kurdish-administered Al-Hol camp in northern Syria.
900 jihadists locked up in the attacked prison
“The objective of the jihadists was the military security prison, in which there are some 900 jihadists, including about 200 high-level,” said Rami Abdel Rahman, director of the OSDH.
In January 2022, dozens of jihadists stormed Ghwayran prison in northeastern Syria to free their brothers in arms.
After several days of fighting and hundreds of deaths, the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) regained control of the prison.
After a meteoric rise in power in 2014 in Iraq and neighboring Syria and the conquest of vast territories, Daesh saw its self-proclaimed “caliphate” crumble under the blow of successive offensives. He was defeated in 2017 in Iraq and in 2019 in Syria.
But the extremist group responsible for multiple abuses continues to carry out attacks in these two countries.