The ISIS group executed 54 members of the Syrian government forces during their escape in the desert of Homs, central Syria, coinciding with the fall of former President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The Observatory stated, “ISIS executed 54 regime soldiers near a fuel station in the Al-Sukhna area of the Homs desert,” adding that the group’s cells had captured soldiers fleeing military service in the desert and Deir ez-Zor during the collapse of Assad’s regime. Meanwhile, the U.S. military reported that U.S. Central Command General Michael Eric Kurilla visited Syria on Tuesday to meet with U.S. forces and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), led by Kurds and backed by Washington. The statement mentioned that Kurilla received a direct assessment of the protection measures for U.S. troops and the rapidly developing situation, as well as efforts to prevent ISIS from exploiting the current circumstances.
In the post-Assad era, Syria represents a potential opportunity for ISIS militants, who may try to exploit any chaos to regain territories and free imprisoned fighters in the Kurdish-controlled region in northeastern Syria. There is no doubt that uncertainty, wars, and power vacuums are what the group desires, as its members move within small cells in the eastern desert, seeking to capitalize on the difficult transitional phase following 13 years of war. Lawrence Bendner, co-founder of the JOS Project, an online platform for analyzing extremism, stated that the group, which declared the establishment of a caliphate spanning Iraq and Syria from 2014 to 2019, sees the goal of armed factions in Syria as the creation of a civil and democratic state, which is far removed from their vision of a state built on Sharia law.
According to Devorah Margolin, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute, securing detention facilities in northeastern Syria is a crucial part of this battle, as the detention camps and prisons holding thousands of men, women, and children linked to ISIS remain highly vulnerable. Experts and the SDF itself have long warned that increasing Turkish pressure in Syria often forces the SDF to suspend basic training and reassign troops responsible for overseeing detention facilities, making these prisons and camps more susceptible to ISIS operations.
While global attention has shifted toward major transition issues in Damascus, the international community must not lose focus on combating ISIS, a critical part of which is securing prisons and detention camps in northeastern Syria. In this regard, the United States must continue to lead by example, emphasizing the need for voluntary repatriation, accountability, and reintegration to address the threat of ISIS’s resurgence both in Syria and beyond. As evidenced by the U.S. participation in an operation against ISIS in central Syria this week, Washington and its partners must take steps to counter the group’s insurgency throughout the country, not just in northeastern Syria. This requires a proactive approach, rather than a reactive one, in combating the group to prevent its return and territorial control.
Meanwhile, U.S. allies in the fight against ISIS in Syria stated that the camps where ISIS militants are held and guarded are being attacked, forcing them to halt operations against the terrorist group, complicating the U.S. military’s efforts to prevent ISIS from reconstituting itself after the overthrow of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Ian Moss, a former senior U.S. State Department official working on counterterrorism, who now works with the law firm Jenner & Block, said that the situation in Syria is “extraordinarily complex right now.” Moss told CNN, “We cannot stay away from this issue at all, and there is broad bipartisan agreement that the situation in the camps is unsustainable.”
Senior U.S. officials, including Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Charles Brown, and Secretary of State Antony Blinken, have spoken with their Turkish counterparts in recent days to emphasize the need for “communication and conflict de-escalation as Syria undergoes a very complicated political transition.” In another confirmation of the chaotic nature of the fighting, the Syrian Democratic Forces shot down an MQ-9 Reaper drone on Monday, believing it to be Turkish.
