Although the operation failed, it wasn’t long before it was signed. The Islamic State group claimed responsibility Monday for an aborted attack on a Kurdish forces headquarters housing a prison in the city of Raqqa, its former “capital.”
According to the Kurdish Autonomous Administration, six members of the Kurdish security forces were killed in the attack. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (OSDH), two jihadists were also killed.
In a statement published on Telegram, the jihadist group said the attack was aimed at “avenging Muslim prisoners,” including female jihadists detained in the Kurdish-administered Al-Hol camp in northern Syria.
900 jihadists locked up in the attacked prison
“The target of the jihadists was the military security prison, which houses around 900 jihadists, including about 200 high-ranking ones,” said Rami Abdel Rahman, director of the OSDH.
In January 2022, dozens of jihadists stormed Ghwayran prison in north-eastern Syria to free their brothers-in-arms.
After several days of fighting and hundreds of deaths, the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) regained control of the prison.
After a meteoric rise in power in Iraq and neighboring Syria in 2014 and the seizure of vast territories, Daesh saw its self-proclaimed “caliphate” crumble under the blow of successive offensives. He was defeated in Iraq in 2017 and in Syria in 2019.
But the extremist group responsible for numerous attacks continues to carry out attacks in these two countries.