AANES gears up to counter ISIS potential attack on prisons in NE Syria
QAMISHLI, Syria (North Press) – Office of Justice and Reform Affairsof Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES) announced on Wednesday a state of readiness and alert on the back of information that Islamic State Organization (ISIS) is preparing for a potential attack against a prison in the city of Qamishli.
The offices said, in a tweet on the AANES’ official account, information received from security authorities reveals that ISIS sleeper cells is getting ready to attack a prison in Allayia neighborhood in Qamishli, northeast Syria, where ISIS militants are held.
On January 20, ISIS sleeper cells carried out a series of attacks on al-Sina’a prison, where thousands of ISIS members are detained, to break their ISIS inmates’ fellows out of the prison, which led the residents of the neighboring areas to flee and take shelter in mosques.
Consequentially, “it was coordinated with Board of Interior to take all measures, precautions and the needed preparations to counter any potential attack, thus Internal Security Forces of North and East Syria (Asayish), at the first level, initiated a combing inside the detention center.”
Sayel al-Zoba’, an official in Shaddadi Military Council in the southern countryside of Hasakah, said information was obtained, indicating that ISIS sleeper cells are “preparing for an attack on prisons where ISIS militants are held, exploiting Turkish attacks.”
Al-Zoba’, in a statement to North Press, added ISIS sleeper cells started to activate in the countryside of Hasakah and Deir ez-Zor, targeting military forces and assassinating AANES employees.
The AANES was first formed in 2014 in the Kurdish-majority regions of Afrin, Kobani and Jazira in northern Syria following the withdrawal of the government forces. Later, it was expanded to Manbij, Tabqa, Raqqa, Hasakah and Deir ez-Zor after the SDF defeated ISIS militarily there.
Since Nov.20, Turkey has been intensively, targeting areas in northeast Syria via warplanes, drones, mortars and artillery, with a focus on hitting economic resources of the region particularly oil facilities.
The Turkish assaults also targeted posts of the Syrian government forces, killing a number of them, and inhabitant villages on the border strip with Turkey.