Guards from the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) abandoned a camp Tuesday in northeast Syria housing thousands of people linked to the ISIS group, and the Syrian military said that allowed detainees to escape.
Hours later, the Syrian government and the SDF announced a new four-day truce after a previous ceasefire broke down. The two sides have been clashing for two weeks, amid a breakdown in negotiations over a deal to merge their forces together.
The al-Hol camp houses mainly women and children who are relatives of ISIS members. Thousands of accused ISIS militants are separately housed in prisons in northeast Syria.
Syria's interior ministry accused the SDF of allowing the release of “a number of detainees from the ISIS militant (group) along with their families.” The AP could not independently confirm if detainees had escaped from the camps or how many.
The SDF subsequently confirmed that its guards had withdrawn from the camp, but did not say whether any detainees escaped. The group blamed “international indifference toward the issue of the (ISIS) terrorist organization and the failure of the international community to assume its responsibilities in addressing this serious matter."
It said its forces had redeployed in other areas "that are facing increasing risks and threats” from government forces.
An official with the US military’s Central Command who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly said, “We are aware of the reports and are closely monitoring the situation.”
The SDF and the government also traded blame over the escape Monday of ISIS members from a prison in the northeastern town of Shaddadi.
The Syrian defense ministry in a statement said it is prepared to take over al-Hol camp and the prisons and accused the SDF of using them as “bargaining chips.”
At its peak in 2019, some 73,000 people were living at al-Hol camp. Since then the number has declined with some countries repatriating their citizens.
Sheikhmous Ahmad, a Kurdish official overseeing camps for displaced in northeastern Syria, told The Associated Press that the al-Hol's current population is about 24,000, about 14,500 of whom are Syrians and nearly 3,000 Iraqis.
He added that about 6,500 from other nationalities are held in a highly secured section of the camp, many of whom are die-hard ISIS supporters who came from around the world to join the extremist group.
Government and SDF trade blame over prison break
Earlier Tuesday, Syria's interior ministry said that 120 ISIS members had escaped Monday from the prison in Shaddadi, amid clashes between government forces and the SDF. Security forces recaptured 81 of them, the statement said.
Also Tuesday, the SDF accused “Damascus-affiliated factions” of cutting off water supplies to the al-Aqtan prison near the city of Raqqa, which it called a “blatant violation of humanitarian standards.”
The SDF, the main US-backed force that fought ISIS in Syria, controls more than a dozen prisons in the northeast where some 9,000 ISIS members have been held for years without trial.
ISIS was defeated in Iraq in 2017 and in Syria two years later, but the group’s sleeper cells still carry out deadly attacks in both countries.
Under a deal announced Sunday, government forces were to take over control of the prisons from the SDF, but the transfer did not go smoothly.
New ceasefire deal announced
The Syrian military announced Tuesday evening a new four-day ceasefire. The SDF confirmed the deal and said “it will not initiate any military action unless our forces are subjected to attacks.”
Elham Ahmad, a senior official with the Kurdish-led local administration in northeast Syria, told journalists Tuesday that an earlier ceasefire had fallen apart after SDF leader Mazloum Abdi requested a five-day grace period to implement the conditions and Syrian Interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa refused.
She blamed the government for violating the agreement but called for a return to dialogue.
In response to a journalist's question regarding whether the SDF had requested help from Israel - which previously intervened in clashes between government forces and groups from the Druze religious minority last year - Ahmad said “certain figures” from Israel had communicated with the SDF. She added that the SDF is ready to accept support from any source available.
A statement from al-Sharaa’s office said government forces will not enter Kurdish-majority areas until plans are agreed upon for their “peaceful integration” and that Kurdish villages will be patrolled by “local security forces drawn from the residents of the area.”
It said Abdi will put forward nominees from the SDF for the posts of deputy defense minister, governor of al-Hassakeh province, representatives in the parliament, and for other positions in Syrian state institutions.
SDF disappointment
SDF officials have expressed disappointment that the US did not intervene on their behalf. The group was long the main US partner in Syria in the fight against ISIS, but that has changed as the Trump administration has developed closer ties with al-Sharaa's government.
US envoy to Syria Tom Barrack in a statement Tuesday urged the SDF to move forward with integration into the new Syrian government and army and appeared to warn the Kurdish-led force that no help would be coming from Washington if it continued fighting.
He said SDF's role as the primary anti-ISIS force "has largely expired, as Damascus is now both willing and positioned to take over security responsibilities” and that “recent developments show the US actively facilitating this transition, rather than prolonging a separate SDF role."
Since toppling Bashar al-Assad in December 2024, Syria’s new leaders have struggled to assert full authority over the war-torn country. An agreement was reached in March that would merge the SDF with Damascus, but it didn’t gain traction.
Earlier this month, clashes broke out in the city of Aleppo, followed by the government offensive that seized control of Deir Ezzor and Raqqa provinces, critical areas under the SDF that include oil and gas fields, river dams along the Euphrates and border crossings.
Al-Sharaa postponed a planned trip to Germany Tuesday amid the ongoing tensions.
