US-Backed Kurdish Forces Are Still Battling Islamic State Fighters at Prison in Syria

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Forces from a Kurdish-led militia traded hearth from rooftops with dozens of Islamic State fighters nonetheless holed up in an embattled jail in northeastern Syria on Thursday, regardless of claims by the US-backed militia a day earlier that it had regained full management of the complete advanced.

The Syrian Democratic Forces militia introduced Wednesday that it had retaken Sinaa jail within the metropolis of al-Hasaka, which held 1000’s of former Islamic State fighters, almost per week after their fellow militants attacked the jail to attempt to free them.

But when New York Times journalists arrived Thursday, the primary worldwide reporters on the scene, the combat was nonetheless on.

The Kurdish-led forces fired rocket-propelled grenades on the partly destroyed jail advanced, and the sound of truck-mounted anti-aircraft weapons rang out as they confronted as much as 90 Islamic State militants nonetheless preventing from inside. An official with one of many Syrian-Kurdish paramilitary teams battling the Islamic State group stated a lot of the holdouts have been amongst those that stormed the jail, however some have been prisoners who had joined forces with them.

The jail assault was the starkest proof but of a resurgence of the Islamic State group throughout components of Syria and Iraq, almost three years after the group misplaced management of its so-called caliphate, an enormous stretch of territory in each international locations. The extremists have additionally mounted a collection of assaults on army forces in neighboring Iraq in latest months.

The jail battle drew the US army into the fray in help of the Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF, offering airstrikes, intelligence and armored automobiles to cordon off the jail. It was the most important confrontation between US forces and the Islamic State group in three years.

Fighting on Thursday additionally raged in areas surrounding the jail advanced.

At a close-by site visitors circle within the heart of al-Hasaka, a New York Times staff took cowl together with native journalists and civilians caught within the center as SDF forces traded hearth with Islamic State gunmen. The firefight broke out near a small US Army base housing a few of the roughly 700 US troops in northeastern Syria.

SDF officers didn’t reply to queries about their assertion on Wednesday that the pressure had totally retaken the jail. On Thursday, an official stated that the remaining Islamic State fighters have been holed up in several sections of one of many jail’s three buildings.

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With inputs from TheIndianEXPRESS

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