ISIS Network of Tunnels Found in Syria's al-Hol Camp

Over 30 murder crimes in al-Hol camp since 2022 (Asharq Al-Awsat)
Over 30 murder crimes in al-Hol camp since 2022 (Asharq Al-Awsat)
TT

ISIS Network of Tunnels Found in Syria's al-Hol Camp

Over 30 murder crimes in al-Hol camp since 2022 (Asharq Al-Awsat)
Over 30 murder crimes in al-Hol camp since 2022 (Asharq Al-Awsat)

The Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (Rojava) has found a network of trenches and tunnels under al-Hol camp, east of al-Hasakah.

The security sources said these trenches and tunnels were used by sleeper cells loyal to the ISIS terrorist organization to smuggle persons and carry out murders and assassination attempts.

The ongoing investigations revealed that the tunnel connects one of the camp sectors to the outer wall and from there to the surrounding areas.

A day earlier, the Rojava security forces thwarted a mass escape through a truck designated for transporting construction materials.

The truck was transporting 39 children and 17 women from 56 ISIS families. The camp witnessed 728 escape attempts since March 2020.

A video recording inside the camp showed how tunnels were dug with primitive tools, covered with metal and wooden panels for camouflage, amid a group of tents inhabited by displaced Syrians and Iraqi refugees.

Escaping Incidents are on the rise in the camp, which houses about 56,000, most of whom are displaced Syrians and Iraqi refugees.

According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees records, 90 percent of the residents of al-Hol camp are women and children.

The security source and director of al-Hol camp, Hamrin Hassan, said that sleeper cells inside and outside the center are linked to human smuggling networks loyal to ISIS.

Hassan explained that they communicate with the terrorist organization through social media platforms, and the first destination after the escape is the Idlib governorate or other areas in northern Syria under Turkish influence.

After that, the same networks transport the escapees from al-Hol into Turkish territory and from there to their homelands, often done in exchange for large sums of money.

Hassan believes that the al-Hol camp is an international issue, asserting that concerned countries must take quick, drastic decisions and measures to provide appropriate solutions.

She explained that no international governments have submitted any proposal and refuse to receive their citizens, claiming they carry an extremist ideology that threatens their societies.

The official warned against not solving this issue, indicating that these families' presence on the border might spread and increase ISIS danger inside and outside the camp.

She stressed that measures must be taken to return them to their countries of origin, asserting that providing humanitarian aid is not enough.

Over 30 murders have occurred in the camp since the beginning of 2022.

Hassan appealed to the international community to save the children who fell victim to their parents' decisions, warning against their extreme background and upbringing.

ISIS families are like a ticking bomb that threatens the entire world, not only Syria, said the director.

She asserted that the camp is not a suitable environment for raising children, who comprise 65 percent of the camp's population.

Over the past years, the Internal Security Forces launched several campaigns and operations in coordination with the international coalition forces and the US army. They arrested several persons involved in human smuggling, including ISIS females, on charges of forming terrorist cells to smuggle the organization's families.



Syria: Elaborate Military Tunnel Complex Linked to Assad's Palace

A fighter affiliated with Syria's new administration carries the decapitated head of an equestrian statue of Bassel al-Assad, brother of toppled president Bashar al-Assad, removed from the abandoned Republican Guard base on Mount Qasyun. Bakr ALKASEM / AFP
A fighter affiliated with Syria's new administration carries the decapitated head of an equestrian statue of Bassel al-Assad, brother of toppled president Bashar al-Assad, removed from the abandoned Republican Guard base on Mount Qasyun. Bakr ALKASEM / AFP
TT

Syria: Elaborate Military Tunnel Complex Linked to Assad's Palace

A fighter affiliated with Syria's new administration carries the decapitated head of an equestrian statue of Bassel al-Assad, brother of toppled president Bashar al-Assad, removed from the abandoned Republican Guard base on Mount Qasyun. Bakr ALKASEM / AFP
A fighter affiliated with Syria's new administration carries the decapitated head of an equestrian statue of Bassel al-Assad, brother of toppled president Bashar al-Assad, removed from the abandoned Republican Guard base on Mount Qasyun. Bakr ALKASEM / AFP

On the slopes of Mount Qasyun which overlooks Damascus, a network of tunnels links a military complex, tasked with defending the Syrian capital, to the presidential palace facing it.
The tunnels, seen by an AFP correspondent, are among secrets of president Bashar al-Assad's rule exposed since the opposition toppled him on December 8.

"We entered this enormous barracks of the Republican Guard after the liberation" of Damascus sent Assad fleeing to Moscow, said Mohammad Abu Salim, a military official from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the dominant group in the alliance that overthrew Assad.

"We found a vast network of tunnels which lead to the presidential palace" on a neighboring hill, Salim said.

During Assad's rule, Qasyun was off limits to the people of Damascus because it was an ideal location for snipers -- the great view includes the presidential palaces and other government buildings.

It was also from this mountain that artillery units for years pounded opposition-held areas at the gates of the capital.

An AFP correspondent entered the Guard complex of two bunkers containing vast rooms reserved for its soldiers. The bunkers were equipped with telecommunications gear, electricity, a ventilation system and weapons supplies.

Other simpler tunnels were dug out of the rock to hold ammunition.

Despite such elaborate facilities, Syria's army collapsed, with troops abandoning tanks and other gear as opposition fighters advanced from their northern stronghold to the capital in less than two weeks,.

On the grounds of the Guard complex a statue of the president's brother Bassel al-Assad, atop a horse, has been toppled and Bassel's head severed.

Bassel al-Assad died in a 1994 road accident. He had been the presumed successor to his father Hafez al-Assad who set up the paranoid, secretive, repressive system of government that Bashar inherited when his father died in 2000.

In the immense Guard camp now, former opposition fighters use pictures of Bashar al-Assad and his father for target practice.

Tanks and heavy weapons still sit under arched stone shelters.

Resembling a macabre outdoor art installation, large empty rusted barrels with attached fins pointing skyward are lined up on the ground, their explosives further away.

"The regime used these barrels to bomb civilians in the north of Syria," Abu Salim said.

The United Nations denounced Bashar's use of such weapons dropped from helicopters or airplanes against civilian areas held by Assad's opponents during Syria's years-long civil war that began in 2011.