Syrian Kurdish-led force captures 63 Islamic State militants in Raqqa
BEIRUT,— A Kurdish-led force arrested 63 suspected militants in the Syrian city of Raqqa Thursday during an operation against jihadist sleeper cells, it said in a statement.
The US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces SDF said those detained belonged to “terrorist cells directly responsible for spreading terror and chaos” in the city.
At least 48 suspected members of the Islamic State group were among those arrested, according to Rami Abdel Rahman, the head of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
He said that members of rival opposition groups are also among those detained by Kurdish security forces in Raqqa, once the de facto capital of IS’s self-proclaimed “caliphate”.
The Kurdish forces in Syria said Wednesday they were detaining foreign Islamic State group fighters on a “daily basis”, days after confirming the capture of German jihadist Martin Lemke.
The arrests are part of a sweeping crackdown on alleged IS sleeper cells in territory controlled by the Kurdish SDF forces, the Observatory said.
The SDF has whittled down IS territory in Syria to a tiny sliver of land near the border with Iraq.
Jihadists have responded by ramping up bomb attacks and assassinations targeting SDF forces elsewhere.
The city of Raqqa, which was taken by the SDF in 2017 after a massive operation by the US-led coalition, has been hit by a spate of bombings in recent weeks.
An explosion on Monday wounded Kurdish security forces in the city, the Observatory said. Last month, an IS suicide bomber attacked a centre for Kurdish forces, killing four civilians and a Kurdish fighter.
The Observatory says that suspected IS sleeper cells have allegedly assassinated at least 50 civilians and 135 SDF fighters in Kurdish-held territory, including eastern Deir Ezzor, Hasakeh’s countryside, Raqqa and Manbij since August.
Washington has for years supported the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in the fight against the Islamic State group in Syria, as part of an international anti-jihadist coalition dominated by the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG). But U.S. President Donald Trump abruptly announced the pullout from Syria.
The Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party PYD and its powerful military wing YPG/YPJ, considered the most effective fighting force against IS in Syria and U.S. has provided them with arms. The YPG, which is the backbone of the SDF forces, has seized swathes of Syria from Islamic State.
In 2013, the PYD — the political branch of the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) — has established three autonomous Cantons of Jazeera, Kobani and Afrin and a Kurdish government across Syrian Kurdistan in 2013. On March 17, 2016, Kurdish authorities announced the creation of a “federal region” made up of those semi-autonomous regions in Syrian Kurdistan.
Copyright © 2019, respective author or news agency, AFP | Ekurd.net
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