On Sunday, the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) announced the end of combing operations in Ghweran prison, following days of violent battles that left 373 people dead, including 268 jihadists, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
And there were thousands of ISIS terrorists in prison.
US State Department spokesman Ned Price confirmed in a statement that Washington commends the Syrian Democratic Forces for their “heroic and effective response” to the attack, which he said the battles during which “high-ranking ISIS officials were killed or arrested.”
The attack is the widest of ISIS seeking to liberate its supporters, since its defeat in Syria in 2019 in the face of Kurdish forces.
“The violent and desperate state tactics of ISIS remind the world that the terrorist organization remains a threat that can and must be defeated,” Price was quoted by AFP as saying.
“This battle is a reminder that the lasting defeat of ISIS requires the support of the international community,” he stressed.
The United States called on its partners in the anti-terrorist coalition to “improve” the conditions of detention for ISIS fighters and to ensure that they are “safe and humane” and for the “urgent return of their nationals and other detainees in northeastern Syria.”
Analysts, military officials and civil authorities, since the fall of the extremist organization, officially agree that these prisons constitute a fertile ground for terrorists, and they contain local and foreign fighters.
However, the majority of the concerned countries refuse to take back their nationals and prefer to keep them in the custody of the Kurdish authorities.
And the Kurdish authorities assert that in the prisons run by more than 50 nationalities. It has long said that it does not have the means to guard or try ISIS detainees.