ISIS has spent three days trying to secure a prison in Syria in the biggest battle involving the terror group since their defeat in 2019. CBS News. The prison, Gweiran in al-Hasakah, housed 3500 ISIS fighters. ISIS attacked the prison with at least 100 fighters and coordinated with fighters inside the prison. Video posted on social media showed ISIS fighters executing prison guards. The battle has continued for three days with hundreds of prisoners escaping. The United States has launched air strikes and there are reports of Bradly Fighting Vehicles manned by US soldiers near the fighting.
SDF says they so far killed 175 ISIS members (160 attackers & 15 prisoners who tried to escape) & the Al-Sina'a prison is under its control. SDF also says 27 of its fighters lost their lives pic.twitter.com/aC8PM31kK2
— Mutlu Civiroglu (@mutludc) January 23, 2022
My Comment:
I've been aware of this story for a couple of days now but I didn't have a good source to write up a post. That changed now. My guess is that the situation became bad enough that the Western media could no longer ignore it.
The situation seems to be fairly fluid with the Kurds and ISIS fighting it out. It's unclear at this time who is winning but regardless it's a major battle for ISISI which is supposed to have been destroyed in Syria. Both sides have taken heavy casualties, with many dead.
ISIS biggest problem is a lack of fighters. The vast majority of their fighters were killed or captured and they have not been able to recruit any new fighters to replace them. That leaves few options, and taking back prisoners is one of the few ways to get reinforcements.
There is a real danger here. With hundreds of new fighters ISIS may be able to take and hold territory again. Or they can use these new fighters to regroup. If ISIS ends up with more fighters than they had when they started than this attack was a success. If they manage to take and hold territory that's even better.
I'm not impressed with the SDF, the local Kurdish fighters, performance here. ISIS gave them a bloody nose and were able to get hundreds of their fighters out of prison. That's not something that should happen if these folks were competent. Given that the ISIS fighters inside the prison were able to coordinate with the fighters outside, it doesn't say much good about their prison administration either.
Will ISIS become a major threat like they were back in the day? Probably not. The Syrian Civil War is not in the same place it was back then. The government there isn't crippled by the rebels and there are already American forces in the area. I don't see them taking major swaths of territory like they did back in 2014. And any violence that does happen should likely stay contained to Syria and won't spread to Iraq like it did last time.
The real danger is that this battle will inspire new fighters and terror attacks. ISIS has been seen as a group of losers for awhile now since they lost all their territory in Syria and Iraq. With a new victory on their belt it may inspire more terror attacks from lone wolves inspired by them. And it's possible that some of the prisoners released in this raid will make their way back to western countries (most of these fighters are foreigners).
I do have to say that this is more bad news for the Biden administration. They have been lucky that ISIS has been on the back burner for awhile. With this new raid, ISIS is back in the news and there may be a wave of terror attacks that will follow. Given that Syria has been an afterthought for the Biden administration, they will bare the blame.
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