Kurdish-Led Militants in Syria ‘on Alert’ for Daesh Attacks
QAMISHLI (AFP) – Kurdish-led militants in Syria boosted security Tuesday a day after foiling a deadly assault by Daesh on a prison fearing that the terrorist group will strike again, a spokesman said.
Authorities on Monday declared a state of emergency in Raqah, the terrorist group’s former de facto capital in northern Syria, after gunmen launched an attack on a security complex near a prison holding fellow militants.
Six members of the Kurdish-led security forces and one terrorist were killed.
Farhad Shami, spokesman for the Kurdish-led so-called Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), said they had “declared a state of alert” and security forces sweeping the area.
“We have information about potential Daesh attacks during end-of-year holidays”, he said, listing the northern Syrian cities of Raqah, Hasakah and Qamishli.
Shami said that a new Daesh leader -- who took over after his predecessor was killed in October -- wanted to assert the group’s presence.
Following the attack, SDF commander Mazloum Abdi had warned that “terrorist cells” were “preparing dangerous plots”.
The failed assault on Monday targeted a Kurdish security complex, which includes a military intelligence prison housing hundreds of terrorists, the so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said.
Daesh claimed responsibility for the attack, saying two of its militants had carried it out to avenge prisoners and female relatives of terrorists living in the Kurdish-administered al-Hol camp.
Al-Hol, home to more than 50,000 people, is the largest camp for displaced people who fled after the SDF led the battle that dislodged Daesh terrorists from the last scraps of their Syrian territory in 2019.
It was the most significant terrorist attack on a prison since Daesh terrorists launched their biggest assault in years in January, when they attacked the Ghwayran prison in the Kurdish-controlled city of Hasakah.
Residents of Raqah, still fearful after years of war, worried that Daesh wanted to stage comeback.
Army Repels U.S. Convoy
In another development, Syrian government troops confronted a U.S. military convoy in northeastern province of Hasakah as the occupation forces were attempting to pass through a community in the energy-rich region.
Amid an increasing public anger over the presence of American occupation forces, Syrian army troops stationed at a checkpoint at the entrance to the village of Tell Dahab, which lies south of the city of Qamishli, blocked and expelled the convoy of several armored vehicles, according to Syria’s official SANA news agency.
The convoy was forced to turn around and return in the direction it had come from.
The development came days after U.S. occupation forces in northeastern Syria sent 95 tankers of stolen Syrian oil to Iraq in two separate convoys.
The batches of stolen oil were sent from the Jazira and eastern regions in Syria’s Hasakah province to northern Iraq through the illegal Mahmoudiya and al-Waleed border crossings late on December 22.