Syria prison attack kills more than 100, clashes ongoing
Categories: FOREIGN COUNTRIES
At least 120 people have been killed in ongoing battles between US-backed, Kurdish-led forces and ISIL (ISIS) fighters after an attack on a Syrian prison.The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said “at least 77 IS members and 39 Kurdish fighters, including internal security forces, prison guards and counter-terrorism forces have been killed” in the attack that started on Thursday. ISIL claimed responsibility for the prison break on its Amaq media mouthpiece on Friday. A video it released on Saturday purported to show armed men infiltrating the prison and raising the group’s black flag as they stormed the Kurdish-run Ghwayran jail in Hasakeh city. Al Jazeera could not independently verify the authenticity of the footage.At least seven civilians were also killed in the fighting, according to the SOHR. The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) said on Sunday it tightened its siege, aided by US-led troops, and that 17 of its soldiers had been killed.The SDF had initially said it had thwarted the breakout and arrested 89 fighters sheltering nearby but later acknowledged inmates had taken over parts of the facility.An SDF spokesman also said the militia had recaptured 104 prisoners who escaped, but the total number of those who broke out had not been determined. Attackers detonated a car bomb near the prison gates, helping dozens of inmates flee into the Ghwayran district.The SDF’s top military commander, Mazloum Abadi, said on Friday ISIL had mobilised “most of its sleeper cells” to organise the prison break.The US Pentagon confirmed the coalition against ISIL carried out air attacks in support of the SDF as it sought to end the prison break. The violence was the deadliest in detention centres holding thousands of suspected ISIL members arrested after they were defeated with US support in north and east Syria.“Thousands have left their homes near the prison, fleeing to nearby areas where their relatives live,” Sheikhmous Ahmed, an official in the autonomous Kurdish administration, told the AFP news agency.