Syrian Kurdish Forces Exit Key IS Detention Camp Amidst Government Advance

Kurdish-led forces in Syria have announced a withdrawal from a detention camp in north-east Syria housing tens of thousands of Islamic State-linked detainees, as Syrian government forces continued to advance in the region. The fate of al-Hol, which houses among others the most radical of foreign women suspected to have been members of IS, and their families, is of great concern to neighbouring states and the international community. These states have for years warned the camp is a hotbed of extremism and chaos could result if a jailbreak were to occur. A smaller number of female detainees are held at al-Roj camp, including Shamima Begum, who was stripped of UK citizenship, further to the north-east and still under Kurdish control. “Our forces were compelled to withdraw from Al-Hol camp and redeploy in the vicinity of cities in northern Syria that are facing increasing risks and threats,” a spokesperson for the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) said, calling the withdrawal a “failure of the international community”. The Syrian government said it would assume control of the camp, accusing the SDF of leaving it without guards, allowing detainees to escape. It similarly accused the Kurdish-led force of doing the same in a prison in Raqqa, where 120 prisoners escaped – a claim the SDF denied. The withdrawal came as the Syrian government swept through northeast Syria, making unprecedented gains as the SDF lost vast swathes of its territory in just a few days. The SDF lost both Raqqa and Deir el-Zour on Sunday, as tribal elements defected from the Kurdish-led force and pushed it to withdraw from the Arab-majority areas. The rapid advance of Damascus’s forces and partial collapse of the SDF almost overnight was stunning, as the Kurdish-led group had controlled nearly a third of the country – with US support – since 2019. It was the biggest shift in frontlines since the fall of the former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad in December 2024. A 14-point ceasefire signed on Sunday by the Syrian president, Ahmad al-Sharaa, and head of the SDF, Mazloum Abdi, collapsed the next day after a disastrous meeting in Damascus. Syrian government sources accused Abdi of trying to stall in implementing the 14-point-agreement, which would turn over most of the Kurdish-led authorities’ institutions and governance to Damascus. Ilham Ahmed, a senior leader of the Kurdish-led authority, said Abdi requested a five-day grace period to implement the agreement, which was rejected by Damascus. “They wanted a direct handing over of everything to Damascus. However, with or without this meeting they wanted to go to war … and now their plan is to massacre the Kurds,” Ahmed told reporters on Tuesday afternoon. After the meeting, Kurdish officials, Abdi included, issued statements calling for a general mobilisation across Kurdish-majority areas and to resist Damascus’s advance towards their territory. SDF-media published pictures of people, young and old, holding assault rifles seemingly in preparation for a further assault. Clashes between the two sides continued on Tuesday, with shelling reported in Kobane – a Kurdish-majority area on the Turkish border, and Syrian government forces entering Hasakeh. The areas lost to Damascus’s forces thus far were Arab-majority areas, many residents of which had long-standing resentments against the SDF. The SDF has seemingly dug into areas closer to the borders with Iraq and Turkey, which are populated mainly by Kurds. If Damascus’s forces advance into Kurdish-majority areas, fighting is likely to be deadlier than in previous days. There they have infrastructure, including heavy artillery, drones and underground tunnel networks. The Kurdish population view the fight as existential, and have pointed to the mass killings when Syrian government forces entered Suweida province and the Syrian coast earlier last year as an example of what could happen to them. The Syrian government said on Tuesday that it would not enter Kurdish areas, saying in a statement that the army’s “goal is to restore stability and protect government institutions”. The SDF was for years the US’s biggest partner in Syria and together they defeated the IS “caliphate” in 2019. It is the military wing of a Kurdish statelet, an autonomous Kurdish-led area that had its own institutions and government. It, among other things, protected Kurdish-rights, which for years had been repressed by al-Assad and his father. When al-Assad fell, the SDF and Damascus came to the negotiating table, with the former seeking to retain its autonomy and the latter wanting to consolidate control over the country. Despite an agreement to integrate the SDF into Syria’s army being signed on 10 March, the two sides remained at odds and occasionally clashed. The US had over the weekend urged the Syrian government to halt its advance at the dividing line of the Euphrates river, but government forces pushed on. It has since stayed silent as the government continued its campaign against the SDF. Damascus’s advance over the last week has helped it extend control over most of the country, and crucially, the country’s largest oil- and gasfields, as well as key dams. It was unclear if the government would press on with its advance or if the two sides would come back to negotiations. The SDF appealed to the US for assistance, which it said had so far not materialised. “Our calls for intervention from the coalition went unanswered until this moment and there remains a very urgent need for intervention,” said Ilham Ahmed.