Clashes erupt around Syrian prisons holding Islamic State fighters

Clashes erupted Monday around two prisons in northeastern Syria holding members of the terrorist group Islamic State, a day after a Kurdish-led militia agreed to hand over control over the prisons to the Syrian government.

That agreement between the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF, and the central government ended weeks of deadly clashes between the two sides. The SDF agreed to merge into the national military and hand over control of security infrastructure — including prisons housing about 8,000 Islamic State detainees — to the government.

But the clashes around two of those prisons underscored the fragility of that deal. Within hours, both the government and the SDF accused each other of trying to derail the agreement. The government accused the SDF of releasing Islamic State detainees from al-Shaddadi prison in Hasakah province and of exploiting the security threat posed by those detainees for political gains, according to state media.

The agreement was a significant victory for the government and a stunning setback for the SDF, which lost control over territory, oil resources and other strategic assets just in the past few days. The SDF emerged with few cards to play in future negotiations over any power its leaders and its forces may retain as part of the new government.

The violence also revived fears around whether the new government would be able to maintain the same level of security the SDF had in an area that once served as the heartland of the Islamic State.

By Monday evening, Syrian officials said they had taken control of al-Shaddadi prison and were combing the area in an effort to rearrest an unspecified number of prisoners they said had been released.

The SDF, in turn, accused armed groups “affiliated” with those in power in Damascus, the capital, of attacking the prison early Monday, without identifying the attackers more specifically.

SDF officials also accused armed groups of attacking another prison, al-Aqtan, in Raqqa, which is the largest city administered by Kurdish authorities and which once served as the capital of the Islamic State’s self-proclaimed caliphate. At least nine SDF fighters were killed in the clashes, the SDF said.

The clashes made it clear that the ceasefire reached Sunday had not yet quelled the tensions between Kurdish forces and Syria’s central government over who controls the country’s northeastern region. The Islamic State seized much of that region in 2014 and ruled it for years before the SDF, with U.S. backing, reclaimed the area.

Government institutions in the northeastern province, a semiautonomous region long administered by the Kurds, will also come under the central government’s authority as will Syria’s gas and oil fields in the area, nearly all of which have been under Kurdish control.

The agreement was widely viewed as little more than a surrender by the SDF, which for months has been in stalled negotiations with the government over the terms of their integration into the new Syrian state that assumed control after the ouster of dictator Bashar Assad in late 2024.

But after a lightning advance by the Syrian military into Kurdish-held territory this month, the SDF forces were put on the back foot and ultimately agreed to the ceasefire deal.

As part of the deal, the central government was to assume security responsibility over prisons holding more than 8,000 Islamic State members captured during the civil war, including al-Shaddadi and al-Aqtan prisons.

The central government is also to take over the sprawling Al Hol detention camp, which houses tens of thousands of family members of Islamic State fighters, many of them foreigners.

After the clashes around the prisons broke out, the SDF accused the U.S.-led coalition, which maintains a few troops on the ground, of ignoring calls for help. A senior U.S. military official denied the SDF claims.

A second U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss operational matters, said Monday that they are working to deescalate the tense situation. The official also said a number of prisoners had been recaptured.

The Islamic State seized territory in northeastern Syria in 2014 and ruled there and neighboring Iraq for years, brutally enforcing its strict interpretation of Islamic law. As the SDF battled to reclaim that land with U.S. support, they detained thousands of Islamic State fighters and tens of thousands of their relatives.

In the years since the Islamic State was routed in 2017, the land that was retaken in northeastern Syria has remained under SDF control.

After Assad’s ouster, the SDF entered negotiations to integrate into the new national military. The deal Sunday was the second it had struck with the government in less than a year. Whether it holds up is unclear.

On Monday evening, the Syrian government sought to position itself as the best ally to international partners in dealing with the threat from Islamic State detainees.

The Interior Ministry accused the SDF of a “serious security violation threatening Syrian, regional, and international security,” in a statement on the social platform X.

“Restoring legitimate state institutions and enforcing the rule of law are the only permanent guarantees of security and stability.”