SULAIMANI (ESTA) — The sweeping operation carried out by the U.S-backed groups has concluded in Syria’s al-Hol detention camp which houses tens of thousands of women and children linked to the Islamic State group.
After more than three weeks, launching on August, 24, the internal security forces led by the Kurdish forces concluded a 24-day sweep campaign at a sprawling camp in northeast Syria on Saturday.
During the crackdown campaign, Dozens of extremists were detained and weapons were confiscated in the operation at al-Hol camp the U.S.-backed forces said.
Two fighters of the U.S.-backed forces were killed in clashes with extremists inside the camp during the operation.
The operation also released two Yazidi girls who has been taken from Iraq as sex slaves years ago and four non-Yazidi women, who had been chained and subjected to torture.
“IS sleeper cells preparing a new generation of militants — boys and girls being fed extremist ideology to eventually try and set up a second so-called Islamic State caliphate — were also uncovered, the statement,” the Internal Security Forces said.
The U.S.-backed Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces as well as members of the U.S.-led coalition assisted the crackdown campaign, according to the Internal Security Forces.
“The operation was launched following the increasing crimes of killing and torture committed by ISIS cells against the camp residents,” said the statement from the U.S.-backed forces, using another acronym for the Islamic State group. It added that since the beginning of the year, the extremists have killed 44 camp residents and humanitarian workers.
The statement also said that 226 people, including 36 women, were detained in al-Hol — widely seen as a breeding ground for the IS.
Al-Hol is a desert camp run by Syrian Kurdish forces for 60,000 people from more than 60 countries, holding those who have a suspected link to the Islamic State terrorist group.
The camp is located in northeastern Syria’s Hasekeh governorate, most of its inhabitants are women and children who fled there after Islamic State’s last enclaves
The International Committee of the Red Cross, which visits the camps, has described them as a “tragedy in plain sight”.
(Esta Media Network/The Associated Press)
