A clash between Kurdish security forces in Syria and members of the Islamic State terrorist group has already left at least 30 dead as of Friday morning, prompting suspicion of coordinated attacks after an attack that killed 11 soldiers in neighboring Iraq.
The clashes erupted after the radical Islamist faction attacked a prison in the northeastern Syrian city of Hasakah on Thursday to free members of the group held there, and killed seven Kurdish security officers, part of the Syrian Democratic Forces (FDS). ) and the Asayish militia.
On Friday, Kurdish agents reacted and so far have killed 23 Islamic State fighters, a military source in the Kurdish forces told Reuters news agency. Kurdish authorities claim to have arrested 89 members of the terrorist group. According to a witness, warplanes of the US-led military coalition are flying over the area — the SDF is supported by the Americans.
According to the FDS, there were new escape attempts this Friday. “Our forces surrounded large groups of fighters who tried to escape,” the forces reported, without giving details of casualties in their ranks.
Although the Islamic State has been expelled from most of the territory it held in Syria years ago, its cells continue to carry out attacks in areas controlled by the SDF and the Syrian government.
This was the second attack since December on a prison to release fighters and, according to the Kurds, is the bloodiest attack launched by the jihadist group since it was defeated in its last stronghold in eastern Syria in 2019.
There are suspicions that the attack on the prison is part of a coordinated action by the Islamic State, which also hit targets in Deir al-Zor, in the east of the country, and a military base in neighboring Iraq, in the province of Diyala, which killed 11 soldiers. —the group claimed responsibility for channels on the Telegram app.
The attack on Iraqi soil took place around 8:30 pm (Brasilia time) on Thursday. Diyala governor Muthanna al Tamimi confirmed the death toll to the Iraqi news agency INA and said that “the terrorists took advantage of the cold and the soldiers’ neglect”. The local chief executive laid the blame on the dead and said that “the base is fortified, there is a thermal camera, night vision devices and a concrete watchtower”.
The Islamic State gained strength in Iraq and Syria in 2014, seizing large parts of these territories and self-proclaiming its “caliphate”, which was defeated in late 2017. The jihadists remain, however, a threat, and they launch attacks against the inhabitants of these areas. areas and security forces, especially in the Kirkuk region and in Salaheddin and Diyala provinces.
The terrorist organization “maintains a clandestine presence in Iraq and Syria and carries out a sustained insurgency on both sides of the border,” according to a UN report published last year. In these two countries, the group would have around 10,000 active fighters, the document says.
IS “is trying to reorganize its troops and activities in Iraq”, says Iraqi analyst Imed Alau, who highlights “the poor training of security forces, the lack of monitoring by the authorities, the failure to comply with instructions and the low temperatures” that facilitate terrorist attacks.
In early September, 13 members of the Iraqi Federal Police were killed in an attack by the group on a checkpoint near Kirkuk. The last major attack claimed by the jihadists in the country took place in July 2021, against a market in a Shiite area of ​​Sadr City, in Baghdad. About 30 people died in a bomb blast.
It helps the terrorists that Iraqi forces no longer have the military support of the US-led international anti-jihadist coalition. Then made up of 3,500 troops, including 2,500 Americans, the coalition ended its “combat mission” last year and is now limited to an advisory service in the country.
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