Eight fighters of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) were killed by Turkish air strikes in al-Hol camp in Northern Syria on Wednesday, SDF press center said, adding that the attack was carried out by war planes and drones, and the security guards were targeted.
Tens of thousands of wives, widows, and children of ISIS members alongside ISIS detainees are held in the camp, which is located in Hasakah province.
The attack was “cunningly planned,” and was carried out to help detainees and families of ISIS members escape, SDF said, stressing that the objective of the attack was to enable a ISIS resurgence in the region.
Sheikhmous Ahmad, a Kurdish official overseeing camps for displaced people in northeast Syria, told AP that some detainees tried to escape.
“The security forces currently have al-Hol camp under control, but that could change if these attacks continued, and the detainees could disperse in the area. This would also threaten international security, not just our own,” he said.
Kurdish-led SDF, the armed force of the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES) and a part of the International Coalition in the fight against ISIS in Syria, oversees the security in al-Hol.
SDF’s top commander Mazloum Abdi told AP that they have been occupied in preparations to repel a ground invasion by Turkey, adding:
“We can say that our work against ISIS with the International Coalition has stopped, because we are preoccupied with the Turkish attacks.”
Recent waves of Turkish air raids targeting AANES territories began on Saturday, and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan stated on Wednesday that the air raids will continue “incessantly.”
According to a report by Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), 45 people, 21 SDF fighters and 18 Syrian troops among them, have been killed by Turkish air strikes in four days.
Source: Gerçek News
