ISIS Kills Seven US-Backed Fighters in Eastern Syria

ISIS killed seven US-backed Kurdish SDF fighters on Monday as part of an ongoing operation at the camp housing tens of thousands of former ISIS fighters.

ISIS released a video showing the killing of six Kurds who had been captured in the operation. The six were all captured alive and executed later.

The US and the SDF took effectively all of the ISIS territory in Syria, and herded the remnants, including civilians, into camps. What was to become of the camps was never decided, but the Kurds were expected to police them in an open-ended manner.

There have been reports ongoing about unrest in the camps, and claims that ISIS remnants were using the areas as ideological recruitment tools. The threat was always that this would lead to blowback, and such is apparently what happened.

Though ISIS has yet to reassert itself in Syria outside the camps, it has made attempts recently to do so, and may be growing more prepared to try again to grab territory.