British News Agency

Videos released by the SDF showed black-masked individuals removing ISIS members from a prison in Shaddadi. The force said it lost control of the building after an attack that left dozens killed or wounded.

According to state news agency SANA, the Syrian army late on Monday confirmed the escape and imposed a full curfew in Shaddadi, but denied attacking the prison, blaming the SDF for the breakouts and saying it would sweep the city to search for militants.

The clashes occurred less than 24 hours after Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa’s government announced it had agreed to a ceasefire with the SDF and would move to end the group’s decade-long control in the northeast and significantly consolidate its authority.

The SDF’s sudden setback in northern Syria raises questions about its ability to maintain control over prisons and camps holding tens of thousands of ISIS supporters.

Clashes were also reported outside the former SDF-controlled al-Aktan prison in Raqqa, and two other city facilities—Taameer and a juvenile detention center—were said by Kurdish sources to have been emptied by local residents. The Syrian army said it had reached al-Aktan to secure it “despite the presence of SDF forces inside.”

Many other ISIS detainees from around 70 countries, including the UK, have been held in Kurdish-majority areas in the northeast since the group’s territorial defeat in 2019.

The vast majority of female detainees and their families are held at al-Hol camp and the smaller Roj camp, where Shamima Begum resided; about 26,000 people are held at al-Hol, while roughly 4,500 men are detained at Panorama or Gweiran prisons.

It remains unclear who freed the prisoners in Shaddadi. The SDF said the armed men involved were “Damascus factions” and claimed some of its fighters were beheaded.

The SDF said the U.S.-led anti-ISIS coalition did not respond to repeated calls for assistance from a nearby coalition base. The U.S. military’s Central Command did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.