Syrian army takes control of camp holding thousands linked to ISIL

Syrian government forces have entered the vast al-Hol camp, which houses thousands of people linked to ISIL (ISIS), after the withdrawal of Kurdish forces who had been controlling the facility for years.

Armoured vehicles carrying troops moved into the camp, located in the desert region of Hasakah province, on Wednesday – a day after the Syrian government announced a four-day ceasefire with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

The transfer of control of the camp, which houses some 24,000 people – mostly women and children linked to ISIL – came after two weeks of fighting between the army and the SDF that was brought to a halt by Tuesday’s truce.

The fighting has seen the SDF, which played a major role in defeating ISIL in alliance with a United States-led international coalition, lose swathes of north and east Syria.

The Kurdish forces had controlled the territories during the chaos of Syria’s civil war, which ended in December 2024 with the fall of former President Bashar al-Assad’s regime.

The government of President Ahmed al-Sharaa in Damascus has been pushing for Kurdish fighters to integrate into Syrian state institutions, as outlined under a March 2025 deal signed with SDF.

Tom Barrack, the US envoy to Syria, said in a statement on Tuesday that the SDF’s role as the primary anti-ISIL force had “largely expired” and that the government in Damascus is “both willing and positioned to take over security responsibilities”.

Yet despite this week’s truce, Al Jazeera’s Zein Basravi reported from Aleppo province that renewed clashes on the outskirts of Kobani were reported on Wednesday.

“We heard gunfire, we heard anti-aircraft fire from the Syrian military side, most likely trying to target drones. The situation is very, very tense,” Basravi said.

Syria’s Defence Ministry said on Wednesday that seven soldiers were killed in a drone attack that it blamed on the SDF in the Hasakah countryside, the country’s state-run SANA news agency reported.

SANA said the attack targeted the Syrian army as its forces attempted to clear a facility previously used to manufacture explosives and drone munitions in northeastern Hasakah, near the border with Iraq. It said seven soldiers were killed and 20 others wounded.

Largest ISIL camp

Earlier this week, President al-Sharaa and SDF chief Mazloum Abdi had agreed that the Syrian state would take over responsibility for ISIL prisoners.

Abdi on Tuesday urged the US-led coalition to “bear its responsibilities in protecting facilities” holding ISIL members.

Al-Hol is the largest camp for people with links to ISIL, which was defeated in Syria in 2019.

The camp was established by Kurdish forces after they took control of swathes of Syria, with coalition backing.

Those held at al-Hol include about 14,500 Syrians and nearly 3,000 Iraqis.

Some 6,500 others, many of them loyal ISIL supporters who came from around the world to join the armed group, are separately held in a high-security section of the camp.

The SDF remains in control of the vast majority of more than a dozen prisons where some 9,000 members of ISIL have been held for years, according to The Associated Press.

The largest facility, holding about 4,500 ISIL-linked detainees, is the Gweiran Prison, located in the city of Hasakah, which is still under full control of the SDF.

On Tuesday, the Syrian Interior Ministry said 120 ISIL members escaped from the Shaddadi prison in Hasakah province.

The army accused the SDF of releasing ISIL detainees from the facility, while the Kurds said they lost control of the facility after an attack by Damascus.

Since then, many of the detainees who fled were captured by government troops who took control of the jail, state media reported.