Stung by Prison Battle, Kurds Say They Need Help against ISIS

Civilians return to the city after fighting subsideds in Hassakeh, Syria, Sunday, Jan. 30, 2022. (AP Photo/Baderkhan Ahmad)
Civilians return to the city after fighting subsideds in Hassakeh, Syria, Sunday, Jan. 30, 2022. (AP Photo/Baderkhan Ahmad)
TT

Stung by Prison Battle, Kurds Say They Need Help against ISIS

Civilians return to the city after fighting subsideds in Hassakeh, Syria, Sunday, Jan. 30, 2022. (AP Photo/Baderkhan Ahmad)
Civilians return to the city after fighting subsideds in Hassakeh, Syria, Sunday, Jan. 30, 2022. (AP Photo/Baderkhan Ahmad)

Weeks after the long, furious battle with militants from the ISIS group over a prison in northeastern Syria, the mangled wreckage of a car used by suicide bombers still sat outside its perimeter. Cranes put in place new cement blast walls to close off the entrance.

Gaping holes remained in the prison’s outer wall, an ominous reminder of the ISIS inmates who escaped during the fighting.

The battle for Gweiran Prison is over; it took 10 days, but US-backed, Syrian Kurdish-led forces finally defeated the militants who attacked the facility in the city of Hasakeh, aiming to break free their comrades jailed inside, in the group’s largest and most stunning operation in years.

But the impact continues to reverberate. Residents in neighboring districts are locked down as Kurdish fighters hunt for fugitive militants hiding among them.

“Ask everyone here, they will tell you the same: We are terrified,” said Muna Farid, a mother of five who lives in the Gweiran neighborhood, which gives the prison its name — echoing the worries of dozens of residents over hidden ISIS milutants.

The region’s Kurdish administrators say the attack shows what they have long been saying: They are not getting enough help to face ISIS as it regains strength.

The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces say the Jan. 20 prison attack was not a surprise to them. Local intelligence sources had been showing a growing number of ISIS sleeper cells in the area. But they say they were hampered in acting because of multiple pressures, including conflicts with Turkey, insufficient international help and Syria’s economic crisis.

“The main reason that ISIS sleeper cells got enhanced and strong is because of international silence and weak support (for SDF) to stand against terrorism,” said Haval Qortay, head of the commando unit that fought ISIS at the prison, using his nom de guerre. “We are relying on resources that are not enough to fight.”

ISIS suffered a blow with the US raid Thursday in northwest Syria that killed the group’s leader, Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi. But it is unlikely to derail the group’s persistent insurgency in Iraq and Syria since its command became much more decentralized after the group’s territorial defeat two years ago.

“For some time now ISIS top leadership have been providing broad, strategic guidance to the global organization, but not day-to-day command and control,” said Dareen Khalifa, a senior analyst at the International Crisis Group. “ISIS’s various elements will continue implementing their local insurgencies until the new successor is named.”

Since ISIS lost its last hold on any territory in 2019, its militants have gone underground in cells that have been carrying out low-level hit-and-run attacks in Syria and Iraq, mainly targeting security forces. Those attacks have been growing, raising fears the group is gaining momentum.

In northeast Syria, governed by a Kurdish-dominated administration, the SDF has been the main force trying to suppress ISIS, with the backing of several hundred US troops.

At the same time, the SDF has to watch over some 10,000 captured ISIS militants in around two dozen detention facilities — including 2,000 foreigners whose home countries have refused to repatriate them. It also oversees some 62,000 family members of ISIS militants, mostly women and children in al-Hol camp. Many of those family members remain die-hard ISIS supporters, and the camp has seen bouts of militant violence.

Khalifa said the SDF has done a “remarkable job” in fighting ISIS and in stabilizing the areas it captured from the group during the long campaign that brought down the “caliphate.”

But she said it is also hampered on multiple fronts. Particularly, its frequent clashes with Turkey, which views the Kurdish faction running eastern Syria as a terrorist group, undermine the anti-ISIS fight. Also, many Arab residents of the region don’t trust that the SDF will remain, fearing the Americans will pull out or the Damascus government will regain control of the area — so they are reluctant to endanger themselves by providing intelligence against militants.

Gweiran Prison, the biggest of the SDF-run prisons, was set up in a school campus, underscoring how the SDF has had to cobble together detention centers for the militants.

On Jan. 20, around 200 militants attacked the prison, in coordination with a riot by inmates inside. The attackers broke in, freed some prisoners, took guards hostage, and held out against SDF fighters for days, even as aircraft from the US-led coalition struck their positions repeatedly.

At least 121 SDF fighters and prison guards and more than 380 militants were killed before the SDF finally restored full control.

The commando chief Qortay said the SDF had long been aware the prison would be an ISIS target and had been receiving intelligence of a growing number of ISIS sleeper cells in the area. Some militants seamlessly pass for civilians at checkpoints, he said. Others move into towns, rent apartments and maintain a low profile.

When the attack erupted, Qortay’s units formed a belt around the prison and the nearby residential neighborhoods. During the fighting, some ISIS members hid in civilian homes, slowing the SDF as it tried to avoid civilian casualties, Qortay said.

Now the prison is fully under SDF control, he said, but he expects more attacks. Militants remain hidden, literally, across the street. SDF troops are still conducting raids to find sleeper cells, relying on intelligence from residents.

One resident of Gweiran neighborhood told The Associated Press how he informs the local authorities whenever he sees a stranger on his street. He has told them of at least eight since the prison break, including one hiding in a water tank.

“I know everyone in this area, if I see a new face I report them directly,” he said. The AP is not identifying him for his safety.

But residents are also angered by the SDF’s clampdown on three neighborhoods near the prison. With guns slung, SDF soldiers at the districts’ entrances forbid locals from leaving until their areas are cleared of militants.

Supplies are allowed in, but residents say it’s not enough. Dozens complained of shortages in food and drinking water. Mothers said they didn’t have enough milk for their babies or food to feed their families.

Fatma al-Khodr sat on the steps outside her home on the phone, begging a neighbor for any leftover bread.

“We are the ones who are suffering the most after this attack. ... We fear ISIS, but we also need water,” she said.

The militants’ ability to carry out such a major attack even amid intelligence warnings was a stinging blow to the SDF. The force is hoping it will show world powers that it needs more support, after long complaining it is left largely on its own to prevent the group’s revival in Syria.

On a recent day, the clouds hung low at a funeral for 23 of the SDF soldiers killed in the prison battle. Thousands came to pay their respects. Among them, Ibrahim Ismail, a merchant from the area.

“Their deaths were a shock to us all,” he said.

Then the crowd fell silent in remembrance. Portraits of the dead were held high as coffins draped in the region’s Kurdish colors passed along the sea of human bodies.



Water Crisis Batters War-Torn Sudan as Temperatures Soar

People refill donkey-drawn water tanks during a water crisis in Port Sudan in the Red Sea State of war-torn Sudan on April 9, 2024. (AFP)
People refill donkey-drawn water tanks during a water crisis in Port Sudan in the Red Sea State of war-torn Sudan on April 9, 2024. (AFP)
TT

Water Crisis Batters War-Torn Sudan as Temperatures Soar

People refill donkey-drawn water tanks during a water crisis in Port Sudan in the Red Sea State of war-torn Sudan on April 9, 2024. (AFP)
People refill donkey-drawn water tanks during a water crisis in Port Sudan in the Red Sea State of war-torn Sudan on April 9, 2024. (AFP)

War, climate change and man-made shortages have brought Sudan -- a nation already facing a litany of horrors -- to the shores of a water crisis.

"Since the war began, two of my children have walked 14 kilometers (nine miles) every day to get water for the family," Issa, a father of seven, told AFP from North Darfur state.

In the blistering sun, as temperatures climb past 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit), Issa's family -- along with 65,000 other residents of the Sortoni displacement camp -- suffer the weight of the war between Sudan's army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

When the first shots rang out more than a year ago, most foreign aid groups -- including the one operating Sortoni's local water station -- could no longer operate. Residents were left to fend for themselves.

The country at large, despite its many water sources including the mighty Nile River, is no stranger to water scarcity.

Even before the war, a quarter of the population had to walk more than 50 minutes to fetch water, according to the United Nations.

Now, from the western deserts of Darfur, through the fertile Nile Valley and all the way to the Red Sea coast, a water crisis has hit 48 million war-weary Sudanese who the US ambassador to the United Nations on Friday said are already facing "the largest humanitarian crisis on the face of the planet."

- No fuel, no water -

Around 110 kilometers east of Sortoni, deadly clashes in North Darfur's capital of El-Fasher, besieged by RSF, threaten water access for more than 800,000 civilians.

Medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) on Friday said fighting in El-Fasher had killed at least 226.

Just outside the city, fighting over the Golo water reservoir "risks cutting off safe and adequate water for about 270,000 people", the UN children's agency UNICEF has warned.

Access to water and other scarce resources has long been a source of conflict in Sudan.

The UN Security Council on Thursday demanded that the siege of El-Fasher end.

If it goes on, hundreds of thousands more people who rely on the area's groundwater will go without.

"The water is there, but it's more than 60 meters (66 yards) deep, deeper than a hand-pump can go," according to a European diplomat with years of experience in Sudan's water sector.

"If the RSF doesn't allow fuel to go in, the water stations will stop working," he told AFP, requesting anonymity because the diplomat was not authorized to speak to media.

"For a large part of the population, there will simply be no water."

Already in the nearby village of Shaqra, where 40,000 people have sought shelter, "people stand in lines 300 meters long to get drinking water," said Adam Rijal, spokesperson for the civilian-led General Coordination for Displaced Persons and Refugees in Darfur.

In photos he sent to AFP, some women and children can be seen huddled under the shade of lonely acacia trees, while most swelter in the blazing sun, waiting their turn.

- Dirty water -

Sudan is hard-hit by climate change, and "you see it most clearly in the increase in temperature and rainfall intensity," the diplomat said.

This summer, the mercury is expected to continue rising until the rainy season hits in August, bringing with it torrential floods that kill dozens every year.

The capital Khartoum sits at the legendary meeting point of the Blue Nile and White Nile rivers -- yet its people are parched.

The Soba water station, which supplies water to much of the capital, "has been out of service since the war began," said a volunteer from the local resistance committee, one of hundreds of grassroots groups coordinating wartime aid.

People have since been buying untreated "water off of animal-drawn carts, which they can hardly afford and exposes them to diseases," he told AFP, requesting anonymity for fear of reprisal.

Entire neighborhoods of Khartoum North "have gone without drinking water for a year," another local volunteer told AFP, requesting to be identified only by his first name, Salah.

"People wanted to stay in their homes, even through the fighting, but they couldn't last without water," Salah said.

- Parched and displaced -

Hundreds of thousands have fled the fighting eastward, many to the de facto capital of Port Sudan on the Red Sea -- itself facing a "huge water issue" that will only get "worse in the summer months," resident al-Sadek Hussein worries.

The city depends on only one inadequate reservoir for its water supply.

Here, too, citizens rely on horse- and donkey-drawn carts to deliver water, using "tools that need to be monitored and controlled to prevent contamination," public health expert Taha Taher told AFP.

"But with all the displacement, of course this doesn't happen," he said.

Between April 2023 and March 2024, the health ministry recorded nearly 11,000 cases of cholera -- a disease endemic to Sudan, "but not like this" when it has become "year-round," the European diplomat said.

The outbreak comes with the majority of Sudan's hospitals shut down and the United States warning on Friday that a famine of historic global proportions could unfold without urgent action.

"Health care has collapsed, people are drinking dirty water, they are hungry and will get hungrier, which will kill many, many more," the diplomat said.