(Adnkronos) – The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) yesterday announced the arrest of at least 18 suspected members of the Islamic State, during a joint counter-terrorism operation with the international coalition carried out the day before in the Syrian city of Raqqa, in the north of the country.
“In response to the Islamic State’s attempts to create instability and disrupt the security of the northern and eastern regions of Syria and to counter its terrorist objectives, our forces, in collaboration with those of the international coalition, carried out an operation on the night of December 21 (…), which targeted the terrorist cells of the Islamic State”, informs a statement.
The SDF underline that after the fall of Bashar al Assad’s regime, who fled the country on 8 December last year after a lightning offensive led by a coalition of jihadists and rebels, “the period of instability that followed gave a hard time to the terrorist organisation”. The Islamic State took “the opportunity to take advantage of the chaos, seizing numerous weapons depots belonging to the Syrian army in various regions. The Islamic State used these resources to improve its operational capacity, carry out acts of terrorism and expand its influence on Syrian territory. He managed to expand his control to include the rural areas of the Syrian desert, as well as other strategic areas, even in the vicinity of the city of Raqqa”.
For this reason, the SDF underline that “to achieve a lasting defeat of the Islamic State, sustained international cooperation is needed, since any resurgence” of this terrorist group “represents a global threat”. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reports that the Islamic State has attacked at least two checkpoints of the Internal Security Forces, known as Asayish, operating in the northern and north-eastern areas of Syria under Kurdish administration, in the context of the war that broke out in 2011.
The organisation, based in London but with informants in the country, reported that gunmen in a car opened fire on a position in the Al Arisha refugee camp, in Hasaka, wounding two Asayish and an attacker. Jihadists on a motorcycle opened fire with machine guns in the town of Al Sabha, in the eastern rural area of Deir Ezzor, with no casualties reported.
The fall of Bashar al Assad, who fled to Russia on December 8 in the face of the lightning advance of the jihadists and rebels led by Hayat Tahrir al Sham (Hts), raises fears of a possible resurgence of the Islamic State, which could exploit security loopholes after the collapse of the regime’s apparatus. Even the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), led by the Kurdish militia People’s Protection Units (Ypg) and supported by the US-led coalition, have warned that the rebel offensive against their positions in Kurdish-controlled areas could weaken operations against the jihadist group.
