In the complex and evolving landscape of Syria, the ongoing battle against the Islamic State group (IS) persists in the Kurdish-controlled northeast. Despite receding from prominent headlines amid other global conflicts, the threat remains.
Kurdish counter-terrorism officials have informed the BBC of a concerning resurgence, with IS cells reportedly regrouping and escalating their attacks within Syria.
Walid Abdul-Basit Sheikh Mousa, a 21-year-old, had recently fulfilled his passion by purchasing a motorcycle in January.
Tragically, his enjoyment was short-lived, as he was killed in February while engaged in combat against IS in northeastern Syria.
Driven by a fervent desire to confront the extremists, Walid had previously run away from home at the age of 15 to enlist in the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). Although initially turned away due to his age, he was accepted three years later.
Multiple generations of his extended family gathered at their home in Qamishli, recounting the details of his brief life.
“I see him everywhere,” expressed his mother, Rojin Mohammed. “He left me with so many memories. He was very caring and affectionate.”
Walid was one of eight children, the youngest of the sons, and possessed a knack for charming his mother.
“Whenever he desired something, he would approach me and offer a kiss,” she recalled. “Then he’d ask, ‘Can you give me money so I can buy cigarettes?'”
The young fighter was killed during intense battles near a strategic dam. His body was discovered by his cousin, who searched the front lines. Overcome with grief, his mother voiced her plea for retribution against IS.
“They broke our hearts,” she lamented. “We have buried so many of our young. May Daesh (IS) be wiped out completely. I hope not one of them is left.”
Contrary to her hopes, the Islamic State Group is reportedly engaged in recruitment and reorganization efforts. According to Kurdish officials, they are exploiting a security vacuum that emerged following the ousting of Syria’s long-time dictator, Bashar al-Assad, last December.
“There’s been a 10-fold increase in their attacks,” stated Siyamend Ali, a spokesman for the People’s Protection Units (YPG), a Kurdish militia that has been fighting IS for over a decade and forms the backbone of the SDF.
“They benefited from the chaos and got a lot of weapons from warehouses and depots (of the old regime).”
He indicated that the militants have broadened their operational scope and diversified their attack methods, progressing from hit-and-run tactics to targeting checkpoints and deploying landmines.
His office walls are lined with photos of YPG members killed by IS.
The YPG militia is considered a valuable ally by the U.S. in the fight against the extremists, while Turkey views it as a terrorist group.
According to Mr. Ali, 30 YPG fighters have been killed in operations against IS in the past year, and 95 IS militants have been captured.
Kurdish authorities are grappling with the responsibility of detaining and managing suspected IS fighters. Approximately 8,000 individuals from 48 countries, including the UK, the US, Russia, and Australia, have been held for years in a network of prisons in the northeast.
Regardless of their guilt or innocence, these individuals have not been formally tried or convicted.
The largest detention facility for IS suspects is al-Sina, located in the city of Al Hasakah, characterized by high walls and watchtowers.
Through a small hatch in a cell door, a glimpse can be caught of men who once instilled terror across a significant portion of Syria and Iraq.
Detainees in brown uniforms with shaved heads sit silently and motionless on thin mattresses, positioned on opposite sides of the cell. They appear thin, weak, and defeated, resembling the “caliphate” they declared in 2014. Prison officials claim these men were affiliated with IS until its last stand in the Syrian town of Baghouz in March 2019.
Some detainees wear disposable masks to prevent the spread of infection. Tuberculosis is a common ailment in al-Sina, where they are being held indefinitely.
There is no TV, radio, internet, or phone access, and no knowledge that Assad was toppled by the former Islamist militant, Ahmed al-Sharaa. At least that’s what the prison authorities hope.
However, according to a prison commander who remains anonymous for security reasons, IS is rebuilding itself behind bars. Each wing of the prison has an emir, or leader, who issues fatwas, rulings on points of Islamic law.
“The leaders still have influence,” he said. “And give orders and Sharia lessons.”
One of the detainees, Hamza Parvez from London, agreed to speak to us with prison guards listening in.
The former trainee accountant admits to becoming an IS fighter in early 2014 at the age of 21. It cost him his citizenship. When challenged about IS atrocities including beheadings, he says a lot of “unfortunate” things happened.
“A lot of stuff happened that I don’t agree with,” he said. “And there was some stuff that I did agree with. I wasn’t in charge. I was a normal soldier.”
He says his life is now at risk. “I’m on my deathbed… in a room full of tuberculosis,” he said. “At any moment I could die.”
After years in jail, Parvez is pleading to be returned to the UK.
“Me and the rest of the British citizens who are here in the prison, we don’t wish any harm,” he said. “We did what we did, yes. We did come. We did join the Islamic State. It’s not something that we can hide.”
I ask how people can accept he is no longer a threat.
“They are going to have to take my word for it,” he says with a laugh.
“It’s something that I can’t convince people about. It’s a huge risk that they will have to take to bring us back. It’s true.”
Britain, like many countries, is in no hurry to do that.
Consequently, the Kurds are left with the responsibility of holding the fighters and approximately 34,000 of their family members.
The wives and children are arbitrarily detained in sprawling desolate tented camps that amount to open-air prisons. Human rights groups say this is collective punishment, a war crime.
Roj camp sits on the edge of the Syrian desert, whipped by the wind, and scorched by the sun.
It’s a place Londoner Mehak Aslam is keen to escape. She comes to meet us in the manager’s office, a slight veiled figure, wearing a face mask and walking with a limp. She says she was beaten by Kurdish forces years ago and injured by a fragment of a bullet.
After agreeing to an interview, she speaks at length.
Aslam says she came to Syria with her Bengali husband, Shahan Chaudhary, just “to bring aid”, and claims they made a living by “baking cakes”. He is now in al-Sina prison, and they have both been stripped of their citizenships.
The mother-of-four denies joining IS but admits bringing her children to its territory, where her eldest daughter was killed by an explosion.
“I lost her in Baghouz. It was an RPG [rocket-propelled grenade] or a small bomb. She broke her leg, and she was pierced with shrapnel from her back. She died in my arms,” she says, in a low voice.
She told me her children had developed health problems in the camp, including her youngest, who is eight. But she admits turning down an offer for them to be returned to the UK. She says they didn’t want to go without her.
“Unfortunately, my children have pretty much grown up just in the camp,” she said. “They don’t know a world outside. Two of my children were born in Syria, they have never seen Britain, and going to family who again they don’t know, it would be very difficult. No mother should have to make the choice of being separated from her children.”
But I put it to her that she had made other choices like coming to the caliphate where IS was killing civilians, raping and enslaving Yazidi women, and throwing people from buildings.
“I wasn’t aware of the Yazidi thing at the time,” she said, “or that people were being thrown from buildings. We did not witness any of that. We knew they were very extreme.”
She said she was at risk inside the camp because it is known that she would like to go back to Britain.
“I have already been targeted as an apostate, and that’s in my community. My kids have had rocks thrown at them at school.”
I asked if she would like to see a return of an IS caliphate.
“Sometimes things are distorted,” she said. “I don’t’ believe what we saw was a true representation, Islamically speaking.”
After an hour-long interview, she returned to her tent, with no indication that she would ever leave the camp.
The camp manager, Hekmiya Ibrahim, says there are nine British families in Roj, among them 12 children. And, she adds, 75% of those in the camp still cling to the ideology of IS.
There are worse places than Roj.
The atmosphere is far more tense in al-Hol, a more radicalized camp where about 6,000 foreigners are being held.
We were given an armed escort to enter their section of the camp.
As we walked in, carefully, the sound of banging echoed through the area. Guards said it was a signal that outsiders had arrived and warned us we might be attacked.
Veiled women, clad head to toe in black, soon gathered. One responded to my questions by running a finger across her neck, as if slitting a throat.
Several small children raised an index finger, a gesture traditionally associated with Muslim prayer but hijacked by IS. We kept our visit short.
The SDF patrol outside the camp and in the surrounding areas.
We joined them, bumping along desert tracks.
“Sleeper cells are everywhere,” said one of the commanders.
In recent months, they have been focused on trying to break boys out of the camp, “trying to free the cubs of the caliphate”, he added. Most attempts are prevented, but not all.
A new generation is being raised inside the razor wire, inheriting the brutal legacy of the IS.
“We are worried about the children,” said Hekmiya Ibrahim back in Roj camp.
“We feel bad when we see them growing up in this swamp and embracing this ideology.”
Due to their early indoctrination, she believes they will be even more hardline than their fathers.
“They are the seeds for a new version of IS,” she said. “Even more powerful than the previous one.”
Additional reporting by Wietske Burema, Goktay Koraltan and Fahad Fattah
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