“That the fighting is still going on speaks volumes regarding the scale of the attack and the vigor of the Islamic State in Syria,” notes Jérôme Drevon, jihadism analyst at the International Crisis Group (ICG). On Thursday January 20, Daesh (Islamic State, IS) fighters launched an assault on the Ghwayran prison, under the control of Kurdish forces, in the city of Hassaké (north-eastern Syria), to release many of their prisoners. imprisoned supporters.
→ THE FACTS. Syria: fourth day of clashes between Daesh and Kurdish forces
“A hundred detainees have been recaptured: this suggests that several hundred have escaped, and these come to reinforce the troops of the attackers”, adds Jérôme Drevon. Since this assault, the fighting between the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF, Kurds) and jihadists has left more than 120 dead – 77 jihadists, 39 Kurdish fighters and 7 civilians – according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. And by the thousands, the inhabitants of the surrounding neighborhoods had to leave their homes.
« This type of attack will happen once more”
Among the experts, there seemed to be an understanding that sooner or later the overcrowded prisons, which house some 12,000 Daesh fighters or supporters, would come under attack. This is without counting the camps where families, women and children, are locked up and which the NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW) estimated in March 2021 at more than 63,000 people (including 20,000 Syrians, 31,000 Iraqis and 12,000 other nationalities).
→ CHRONICLE. Deceptive calm in Syria
But the place, Hassaké, which is not an IS stronghold, and the scale of the attack were surprising. “It is increasingly likely that this was not a local initiative but was directed at a higher level within IS, believes Jérôme Drevon. It is obvious that this type of attack will happen once more. »
According to him, IS is not short of weapons: the organization was able to keep some in decentralized caches following it lost its territorial hold in 2019. And it is able to recruit in prisons which feed the jihadist flame, but also within the population, which lives in difficult security and economic conditions.
“The enormous burden of prisons”
The management of these prisons “is a huge burden” for the Kurdish forces, denounced in March 2021 Badran Chia Kurd, the vice-president of the autonomous administration, to HRW. “The international community, especially the countries whose nationals are in the camps and prisons, is not assuming its responsibilities. This issue, if left unresolved, will have repercussions not just for us, but for the rest of the world.”, he warned then.
In the spring of 2019, France had drawn up a plan to repatriate jihadists and their families aboard two planes, as revealed at the time by the daily Release, before the operation, unpopular, is canceled. “States are sorely lacking in long-term vision, regrets Jérôme Drevon, repatriation, which remained the exception, is nevertheless the least bad solution. »
By procrastinating, Western countries encourage the ramification of Daesh, argues the expert. Some, like the United Kingdom which, according to him, has stripped several hundred jihadists of their nationality, are creating a generation of stateless fighters. All maintain, de facto, the terrorist threat with these cohorts of European jihadist veterans in prisons and, perhaps also, among the fugitives.
