A week after the Kurdish SDF declared an ISIS attack on the Hasakeh prison foiled, and a day after they reported the final ISIS fighters surrendered, the SDF was on the hunt for yet more ISIS in the prison compound.
Broadly the fighting is over, but some smaller clashes are still reported. The final death toll continues to rise as more bodies are found. 151 ISIS have been confirmed killed, along with 53 Kurdish fighters. Previous reports also had a handful of civilian bystanders slain.
The Kurdish forces were led by the SDF, and backed by US air support, and some US ground troops present. The prison was the largest of those holding ISIS detainees from the 2019 fall of the Caliphate, and the attack was done with an eye toward helping them escape.
The SDF believed they had foiled the break-in on the first day, when ISIS scattered. They didn’t flee as expected, but took over houses and buildings, digging in for fighting which was the biggest single ISIS battle in Syria since 2019.
US training of allied patsies apparently extends to ‘mission accomplished’.