Inside Syria’s jail for IS suspects as officials say attacks by group are rising

In the complex mosaic of the new Syria, the age-old battle continues against the group calling itself the Islamic State (ISIS) in the Kurdish-controlled northeast. It’s a conflict that has escaped the headlines, with bigger wars brewing elsewhere.

But Kurdish counter-terrorism officials told the BBC that ISIS cells in Syria were regrouping and increasing their attacks.

Walid Abdel Basset Sheikh Musa was obsessed with motorcycles and was finally able to buy one in January.

The 21-year-old has only had a few weeks to enjoy it. He was killed in February while fighting against ISIS in northeastern Syria.

Walid was so keen to confront the extremists that he ran away from home, aged 15, to join the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces. They sent him back because he was a minor, but they accepted him after three years.

Generations of his extended family gathered in the courtyard of their home in the city of Qamishli to tell us about his short life.

“I see him everywhere,” said his mother, Rojin Muhammad. “He left me with so many memories. He was so caring and affectionate.”

Walid was one of eight children, and the youngest. He could always rally around his mother.

“When he wanted something, he would come over and kiss me,” she recalls. “Say, can you give me money so I can buy cigarettes?”

The young fighter was killed within days of battle near a strategic dam, and his body was found by his cousin searching on the front lines. Through tears, his mother calls for revenge against ISIS.

“They broke our hearts,” she says. “We buried a lot of our children,” she says. “I hope ISIS will be completely eliminated.” “I hope not a single one of them stays.”

Instead, ISIS is recruiting and reorganizing — according to Kurdish officials, taking advantage of the security vacuum after the overthrow of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad last December.

“Their attacks have increased 10-fold,” says Siamand Ali, spokesman for the People’s Protection Units (YPG) — a Kurdish militia that has been fighting ISIS for more than a decade and is the backbone of the SDF.

“They took advantage of the chaos and obtained a lot of weapons from the warehouses and depots (of the old regime),” he added.

He added that the militants expanded their areas of operations and attack methods. They moved from hit-and-run operations to attacking checkpoints and planting land mines.

The walls of his office are filled with pictures of YPG members killed by ISIS.

For the United States, the YPG militia is a valuable ally in the fight against extremists. For Turkey, it is a terrorist group.

Last year, 30 YPG fighters were killed in operations against ISIS, according to Mr. Ali, and 95 ISIS fighters were captured.

Kurdish authorities have their hands – and their prisons – full of suspected ISIS fighters. About 8,000 people – from 48 countries including the UK, US, Russia and Australia – have been detained for years in a network of prisons in the north-east of the country.

Whatever their guilt – or innocence – they were not tried or convicted.

The largest prison for ISIS suspects is the China Prison in the city of Hasakah, which is surrounded by high walls and watchtowers.

Through a small hole in the cell door, we catch a glimpse of the men who have brought terror to about a third of Syria and Iraq.

Detainees wearing brown uniforms – with their heads shaved – sit silent and motionless on thin mattresses, on opposite sides of the cell. They appear thin, weak and defeated, like the “caliphate” they declared in 2014. Prison officials say these men were with ISIS until their final battle in the Syrian town of Baghouz in March 2019.

Some detainees wear disposable masks to prevent the spread of infection. Tuberculosis is their companion in China City, where they are detained indefinitely.

There is no television or radio, no internet or phone, and no knowledge that Assad was overthrown by former Islamist militant Ahmed al-Sharaa. At least that’s what the prison authorities hope.

But ISIS is rebuilding itself behind bars, according to a prison commander whose identity cannot be revealed for security reasons. He says that each wing of the prison has an emir or leader who issues fatwas, which are rulings related to points of Islamic law.

“The leaders still have influence,” he added. “And giving orders and lessons of Sharia.”

One of the detainees, Hamza Parvez from London, agreed to talk to us while prison guards listened.

The former trainee accountant admits that he became an ISIS fighter in early 2014 at the age of 21. This cost him his citizenship. When asked about ISIS atrocities, including beheadings, he said a lot of “unfortunate” things had happened.

“A lot of things have happened that I don’t agree with,” he said. “And there were some things I agreed with. I was not responsible. I was an ordinary soldier.”

He says his life is now in danger. “I’m on my deathbed… in a room full of tuberculosis,” he said. “At any moment I could die.”

After years in prison, Parvez demands to be returned to the United Kingdom.

“I and the rest of the British citizens here in prison do not want any harm,” he said. “We did what we did, yes. We did come. We joined ISIS. This is not something we can hide.”

I ask how people can accept that he is no longer a threat.

“They’ll have to take my word for it,” he says with a laugh.

“It’s something I can’t convince people of. It’s a big risk they’ll have to take to bring us back. It’s true.”

Britain, like many countries, is in no rush to do so.

Thus, the Kurds continued to detain the fighters and about 34,000 of their family members.

Wives and children are arbitrarily detained in sprawling, abandoned camps that amount to open-air prisons. Human rights groups say this is collective punishment and a war crime.

Roj camp is located on the edge of the Syrian desert – battered by the wind and scorched by the sun.

It is the place that Londoner Mahak Aslam is keen to escape. She came to meet us in the principal’s office, a slightly veiled woman, wearing a face mask and walking with a limp. She says she was beaten by Kurdish forces years ago and was hit by a bullet fragment.

After agreeing to be interviewed, she spoke at length.

Aslam says she came to Syria with her Bengali husband, Shahan Chowdhury, only to “bring aid,” and claims they were living on “baking cakes.” He is now in the industrial prison, and they have been stripped of their citizenship.

The mother of four denies joining ISIS, but she admits to bringing her children to the organization’s territory, where her eldest daughter was killed in an explosion.

“I lost it in Baghouz. It was an RPG game [rocket-propelled grenade] Or a small bomb. She broke her leg and was hit by shrapnel in her back. She died in my arms,” she says in a low voice.

She told me that her children had developed health problems in the camp, including her youngest, who is eight years old. But she admits rejecting the offer to return them to the UK. She says they don’t want to go without her.

“Unfortunately, my children largely grew up in the camp,” she said. “They don’t know the outside world. Two of my children were born in Syria, have never seen Britain before, and it will be very difficult to go to a family they don’t know again. No mother should choose to be separated from her children.”

But I explained to her that she had made other choices like coming to the caliphate where ISIS was killing civilians, raping and enslaving Yazidi women, and throwing people off buildings.

“I wasn’t aware of the Yazidi thing at the time, or that people were being thrown from buildings. We didn’t witness any of that. We knew they were very extremist,” she said.

She said she was at risk inside the camp because it was known that she wanted to return to Britain.

“I have already been targeted as an apostate, and this is in my community. My children have been stoned at school.”

I asked her if she would like to see the return of the ISIS caliphate.

“Sometimes things get distorted,” she said. “I don’t think what we saw was a true representation of Islam.”

After an hour-long interview, she returned to her tent, with no sign that she would ever leave the camp.

The camp director, Hakmiya Ibrahim, says that there are nine British families in Roj, including 12 children. She adds that 75% of those in the camp still adhere to ISIS ideology.

There are worse places than Rouge.

The atmosphere is more tense in Al-Hawl camp, a more extreme camp where about 6,000 foreigners are detained.

We were given an armed escort to enter their section of the camp.

As we entered – cautiously – the sound of beating echoed in the area. The guards said it was a sign of the arrival of strangers and warned us that we might be attacked.

Soon, veiled women dressed in black from head to toe gathered. One of them answered my questions by running her finger down her neck, as if she was slitting her throat.

A number of young children raised their index fingers, a gesture traditionally associated with Muslim prayer, but which was hijacked by ISIS. We kept our visit short.

A Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) patrol outside the camp and in the surrounding areas.

We joined them, bumping along the desert tracks.

“Sleeper cells are everywhere,” one commander said.

He added that in recent months they have focused on trying to get the boys out of the camp “and trying to free the cubs of the caliphate.” Most attempts are blocked, but not all.

A new generation is growing up – inside the barbed wire – inheriting the brutal legacy of ISIS.

“We are worried about the children,” Hakmiya Ibrahim said in Roj camp.

“We feel bad when we see them growing up in this swamp and embracing this ideology.”

Given their early indoctrination, you would think they would be more strict than their parents.

“They are the seeds of a new version of ISIS,” she added. “Even stronger than before.”

Additional reporting by Witski Burema, Goktay Kuraltan and Fahad Fattah