Six members of the Kurdish-led security forces and two jihadists were killed on Monday in a failed attack by the Islamic State group near a prison for extremists in northern Syria, a war monitor said.
The failed attack targeted a Kurdish security compound in Raqqa, the group’s former de facto capital in Syria, which includes a military intelligence prison that houses jihadists, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
“The jihadists were targeting the military intelligence prison” that houses hundreds of jihadists, including 200 high-level militants, said Rami Abdel Rahman, who heads the Britain-based monitor.
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Kurdish-led authorities have announced a state of emergency in Raqqa and have locked down the city while security forces pursue jihadists in general.
IS claimed responsibility for the attack, saying two of its fighters had launched it, one of whom had escaped.
The group said the attack came to avenge “Muslim prisoners” and female relatives of the jihadists living in the Kurdish-run Al-Hol camp.
Al-Hol, home to more than 50,000 people, is the largest camp for displaced people who fled after the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) led the battle that evicted Islamic State group fighters from the last remnants of its Syrian territory in 2019.
The spokesman for the SDF, which controls Raqa and Al-Hol, confirmed the death of six security forces at AFP.
The attack happened near a prison holding Islamic State inmates, he said, but “ISIS was unable to attack the prison because our forces thwarted their attack,” Farhad Shami said.
Security forces are still searching the area to arrest the cell members, he added.
This is the most significant jihadist attack on a prison since Islamic State fighters launched their biggest attack in years in January, when they attacked Ghwayran prison in the Kurdish-controlled city of Hasakeh.
Hundreds of people were killed in the week-long assault aimed at freeing their fellow jihadists.
The Syrian war, which broke out in 2011, killed nearly half a million people and caused the largest conflict-induced displacement since World War II.
