As Syria’s new leaders consolidate control and merge rebel factions under the country’s Defense Ministry, the future of the United States’ Kurdish allies in Syria remains uncertain. So are the camps and prisons they control, where thousands of family members of Islamic State fighters are held, along with suspected militants.

The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a coalition of Kurdish fighters allied with the US in northeastern Syria, are under attack from Turkish-backed forces. The SDF’s relationship with the new Syrian government led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the Islamist rebel group that led the ouster of Assad, is uncertain.

The SDF has led the fight against the Islamic State, whose remnants are regrouping in Syria.

The United States, fearing a resurgence of ISIS, sent a message to Turkey after related reports not to invade North-Eastern Syria, as reported earlier by SKAI Washington analyst Michalis Ignatiou. In this direction, the American Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin contacted his Turkish counterpart Yasar Güler by phone on Tuesday evening with the sole subject of discussion being the ongoing crisis in Syria.

In fact, in a development that further ignites the crisis in the region, the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, issued new threats to the Kurdish forces, warning that “they will either say goodbye to their weapons, or they will be buried in Syria with their weapons.”

Who are in the camps?

The camps are, in effect, open-air detention centers. Their population increased after the defeat of the ISIS caliphate in 2019.

However, those who remain there have not been charged with crimes, raising human rights concerns, the Washington Post notes. The vast majority are women and children, not from Syria but from the region and dozens of countries around the world. Some of them are not believed to be linked to ISIS, but instead are people fleeing the violence.

Nearly 47,000 people were being held in two camps, al-Hol and Roh, as of December 2023, according to an Amnesty International report.

The Global Coalition – a group of 87 member states allied against ISIS – said in November that there were 39,904 people in al-Hol. The population in al-Hol is declining, the coalition noted, due to increased repatriations.

But complicating the issue of repatriation is the refusal of many countries—especially in the West—to take their citizens back. Some of these have stripped alleged ISIS members of their citizenship, rendering them stateless. Iraq is one of the few countries that has worked to repatriate its citizens from al-Hol and Roh.

Who guards the camps?

The camps are guarded by the Syrian Democratic Forces, SDF. The United States is supporting the SDF, providing them with weapons and training, in an effort to fight ISIS. The Pentagon revealed this month that there are about 2,000 US troops in Syria, as part of an effort to curb the rebuilding of ISIS enclaves.

The Kurds are an ethnic minority in the Middle East, without a state of their own and divided into parts of Turkey, Iraq, Syria and Iran.

Turkey considers the SDF to be aligned with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, which Ankara and Washington label a terrorist organization.

What could happen next?

The changing power dynamic in Syria since the fall of the Assad regime has complicated things for the SDF, including the camps it controls.
Amidst the chaos of Assad’s overthrow, the SDF has come under increasing attack from its enemies, namely the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army. As part of a US-brokered deal, the SDF has already withdrawn from the city of Manbij.

Senators Chris Van Hollen and Lindsey Graham on Tuesday threatened sanctions on NATO ally Turkey if it does not agree to an “extended ceasefire” and a demilitarized zone. “Turkish-backed forces have stepped up attacks against our Syrian Kurdish partners, once again threatening the vital mission of preventing the resurgence of ISIS,” the senators said in a statement.

Sinam Mohammed, the head of the US mission for the SDF’s civilian arm, told the Washington Post in an interview this month that the SDF was committed to guarding ISIS prisoners, but that increased attacks may force them to divert military resources.

The US has expressed concerns that pockets of ISIS could take advantage of the instability of the moment. Mohammed said there has been movement within ISIS camps since the Syrian rebels took over Damascus.

“This is a threat to the entire region. That means everything we’ve done over the years with the United States, with the global coalition to stop and end ISIS, will all be wasted,” he said.