Syria, Iraq and ISIS
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A fragile truce reached this week between the Syrian government and Kurdish-led fighters was seen as a blow by many Kurds in their hard-won fight for autonomy.
The huge al-Hol camp in northeastern Syria for years has posed an intractable problem — a destitute and increasingly dangerous detention site where ISIS ideology lives on.
Questions have emerged over the fate of thousands of Islamic State prisoners in northeastern Syria after government forces seized swaths of territory long controlled by Kurdish forces who had been guarding the prisons.
Some 150 fighters were moved Wednesday, but thousands more could follow as tensions flare between the Syrian government and a Kurdish-led militia.
The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces said that it asked for help from a U.S. coalition base but that it "did not intervene, despite repeated calls for intervention."
Chaos around prisons holding ISIS detainees in Syria is highlighting security risks for U.S. forces in the region.
The decision to move ISIS prisoners from Syria to Iraq came at the request of Baghdad, officials say
The move to start transferring detainees came after Syrian government forces took control of a sprawling camp that houses mostly women and children.
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The future of Syria’s Kurds hang in the balance
The Syrian government under President Ahmad al Sharaa has moved to reassert control over Kurdish-held territories in the country’s north and northeast. Kurds facing pressure both from Damascus and from their former Arab allies against ISIS were pushed out of Aleppo and Raqqa.