Isis has army in waiting, warns US

Islamic State has an “army in waiting” in prisons and displacement camps across Iraq and Syria, the American military has warned in its annual report on the challenge the group still presents across the Middle East.

There are 20,000 Isis fighters and leaders in detention in Iraq and a further 10,000 in Syria, the US central command report said. On top of that, there are 25,000 children in camps like the al-Hawl facility in northeast Syria who are the “potential next generation of Isis”, it said.

“These children in the camp are prime targets for Isis radicalisation,” it said. “The international community must work together to remove these children from this environment by repatriating them to their countries or communities of origin while improving conditions in the camp.”

American, British and other western troops remain in northeast Syria and in Iraq and have continued to take an active part in anti-Isis operations, despite moving officially to an “advisory” role in Iraq.

The report said that US troops had taken part in 313 anti-Isis operations in the two countries, in which 686 Isis fighters were killed and a further 374 detained.

Among the fighters who died was Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi, the Isis leader, who detonated a suicide vest rather than be captured as US special forces stormed his hideout in northwest Syria in February.

The biggest threat posed by Isis, however, came in its assault on a prison in Hasakah, northeast Syria, run by the local western ally the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). In the ensuing battle more than 400 Isis fighters and 120 SDF troops were killed. “There is a literal ‘Isis army’ in detention in Iraq and Syria,” the report said. “The January prison breakout is a reminder of the risk imposed by these prisons.”

The other underlying reason for the continuing threat posed by the group, particularly in Syria, is the chaotic governance of much of the country, which is divided between four ruling authorities: the regime of President Assad, the western-backed SDF, the jihadist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, in Idlib, and Turkish-backed former rebels in the north.

In one regime-held area, Deir Ezzor, at least ten oil workers were killed in an Isis raid on their buses yesterday.

In Deraa, in the far south of the country, once a rebel stronghold and now supposedly held by the regime, former Free Syrian Army fighters clashed with Isis in October. They discovered later that one of the Isis fighters killed was al-Qurayshi’s replacement as Isis leader, a fact confirmed by the US after central command tested his DNA.