IS prison camps in Syria at risk of 'mass breakout', says Pentagon watchdog

Thousands of IS fighters are still being held in detention camps run by the Syrian government, and pose a “high-impact risk of a mass breakout,” according to a report by the US government.

Since the US withdrawal from northwestern Syria, US forces are unable to access prison facilities and properly assess the risk of a breakout, the Pentagon inspector general warned in a report released Wednesday.

The quarterly Inspector General report covers January to March 2020 and provides Congress with an update on the fight against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, using information gathered by the Defence Department, State Department and US Agency for International Development (USAID).

The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), made up mostly of Kurdish fighters, hold nearly 2,000 foreign fighters and 8,000 Iraqi and Syrian fighters in some 20 detention centres in northeast Syria, the report revealed.

“If not adequately addressed, these populations of fighters pose one of the most significant risks to the success of the [anti-ISIS] mission, in addition to posing a threat to US and Coalition partner national security,” the US-led mission in Iraq and Syria reported to the lead inspector general, Sean O’Donnell.

Since Turkish forces invaded northeastern Syria in October, the coalition has “little or no direct access” to the facilities and “is no longer able to track comprehensive data on the foreign fighter population or the level of security at the SDF detention centres where they are being held,” the report went on.

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Ongoing riots and small-scale escape attempts “underscore the risk,” the report found, security at the detention centres remains high.

There was a riot at a detention centre in Hasakah, fuelling fears that the fighters could break out.

The riot continued for 24 hours before the SDF was able to put a stop to it, and the inspector general cited reports that “ISIS militants began breaking down doors and digging holes in walls between cells.

“The rioting was brought under control the next morning, but erupted again with gunfire heard inside and ambulances called in the help the wounded,” the report said.

It doesn’t help matters that dozens of fighters are kept in one cell, security cameras don’t work and cheap cement walls are coming down, officials who have visited the prisons say.

In March, General Kenneth McKenzie, CENTCOM commander, called the coalition's efforts to train and equip prison guards and construct prison structures "a tactical-level Band-Aid, not a long-term solution."

"Military solutions do not exist for the issues of de-radicalization and repatriation of (foreign terrorist fighters)," McKenzie told Congress.

"They are international problems requiring international solutions."