The so-called Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have reportedly searched for Daesh (ISIS) suspects in Syria’s northern city of Hasakah after members of the terrorist group took over a prison in the city to free their comrades.
Video showed the armed SDF personnel searching houses and stopping a suspected escaped inmate in the street on Sunday.
Video also showed warplanes flying over the prison from which the inmates were thought to have escaped.
At least 70 inmates were killed in the Daesh’s attack on the prison, which began on Thursday. The Daesh terrorists detonated a car bomb near the prison gates, helping dozens of inmates flee to the neighboring Ghwayran district of Hasakah, witnesses and officials said, Reuters reported.
The US-backed SDF initially said it had thwarted the breakout and arrested nearly 90 militants sheltering nearby, but later acknowledged that inmates had taken over parts of the facility.
It said on Sunday that 17 of its forces were killed in the deadliest rioting in detention centers holding thousands of suspected terrorists.
On Saturday, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby claimed that the US-led occupation forces had carried out airstrikes in support of the SDF. However, the Daesh terrorists took full control of the prison after the SDF and US-led occupation forces failed to control the situation.
Arab tribal figures in touch with residents in the area said US-led troops had taken over positions around the prison and planes were seen flying overhead.
“The clashes are still going on inside the prison, its outskirts, surroundings of the al-Basel roundabout and the highway,” Syria’s official news agency SANA reported Saturday, quoting local sources who further noted that freed terrorists have been fortifying themselves in surrounding complexes.
Syria has been gripped by foreign-backed militancy since 2011, when the US and its Western and regional allies began their overt attempts to overthrow the government of President Bashar al-Assad.
In recent years, the US has been maintaining an illegal military presence on Syrian soil, collaborating with militants against Syria’s legitimate government, and bombing the positions of the Syrian army and anti-terror popular forces.
The US military has also stationed its forces and equipment in eastern and northeastern Syria with the alleged aim of preventing the oilfields in the areas from falling into the hands of the Daesh terrorists.
The Takfiri terrorists have been active in the oil-rich provinces of Syria despite the heavy deployment of the US occupation forces.
The terrorists have managed to regain a foothold in the region after facing defeat at the hands of the Syrian army in 2019.