RAQQA, Syria (AP) — Syrian government forces took control Friday of a prison housing members of the Islamic State group in the north of the country, after hundreds of Kurdish fighters evacuated from the area as part of a recent deal.
Syria’s Interior Ministry said in a statement that the government’s prisons authority is now in charge of al-Aqtan prison north of the northern city of Raqqa, and the files of the detainees are being reviewed.
Al-Aqtan
prison is the second jail to come under government control after troops entered Shaddadeh prison on Monday near the border with Iraq, from where 120 IS detainees managed to flee amid the chaos. Most of them have been recaptured, state media said.
The move into al-Aqtan prison comes two days after the U.S. military said that it has started transferring some of the 9,000 IS detainees held in more than a dozen detention centers in northeast Syria controlled by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF, in northeast Syria.
The SDF was the main force fighting IS in Syria over the past decade, and in March 2019 captured the last sliver of land that the extremists held.
During the battles then against IS, thousands of extremists and tens of thousands of women and children linked to them were taken and held in prisons and al-Hol camp, which was taken by government forces on Wednesday.
The capture of al-Aqtan prison came after government forces surrounded it from all sides earlier this week during a two-week offensive against the SDF. Raqqa governor Abdul-Rahman Salama said there are up to 2,000 detainees at al-Aqtan, but it wasn't immediately clear how many of them are linked to IS.
Deputy Interior Minister Maj. Gen. Abdul-Qader Tahan visited the prison on Friday to see the conditions of the detention center and the detainees, state television reported.
Negotiations had been ongoing for days, after which a deal was reached to open a corridor for the nearly 800 SDF fighters to head west toward the region of Kobani, which is still controlled by the U.S.-backed group.
The SDF said in a statement that with the support of the U.S.-led coalition, the force has completed the transfer of its fighters assigned to securing al-Aqtan Prison “to safe locations.” The SDF said that al-Aqtan prison holds detainees from the IS “terrorist organization.”
The government push into northeast Syria in early January led thousands of mainly Kurds to flee into the northeastern province of Hassakeh, which has a large Kurdish community. A four-day ceasefire was declared Tuesday night, after several previous truces collapsed.
As part of a deal signed by interim Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa and SDF commander Mazloum Abdi, the U.S.-backed force should merge into the ministries of defense and interior.
U.S. envoy Tom Barrack said in a statement on Tuesday that the SDF’s role as Syria’s primary anti-IS force “has largely expired” since the new government is “both willing and positioned to take over security responsibilities.” The U.S. isn't interested in “prolonging a separate SDF role,” he said.
On Wednesday, U.S. and Iraqi officials said that Iraq had requested that IS detainees be transferred to Iraq, and Washington accepted the idea. The Syrian government welcomed the deal to transfer the prisoners after it was made public on Wednesday saying it will help in the process.
