A senior official with the U.S.-allied Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) warned on Monday the Islamic State “exploited the security vacuum” following the fall of dictator Bashar Assad and remains a formidable threat to the country.
The SDF, a Kurdish-led coalition of militias in northern Syria, confirmed dozens of operations against Islamic State terrorists in the past two months, coordinated with both the administrations of President Donald Trump and his predecessor Joe Biden.
The Islamic State, a genocidal terrorist group, once controlled a significant percentage of Syrian territory during the Assad regime which it used to centralize its “caliphate” experiment in the “capital” of Raqqa. The SDF, working in coordination with America, destroyed the ISIS caliphate in 2017, an event that preceded an extended lull in the greater civil war in the country between Assad and various anti-Assad rebel forces in the country.
That lull ended dramatically in November when Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), an al-Qaeda affiliate, seized control of the second-largest city in the country, Aleppo. The HTS surprise attack prompted mass desertions from Assad’s army and its ultimate collapse, allowing HTS to take over Damascus on December 7. Assad himself fled the country to Russia, where he received political asylum, in the hours between December 7 and 8.
In areas where Assad’s forces abandoned their posts but HTS had not yet seized control, the Islamic State began establishing a presence, according to a spokesman for one of the militias under the SDF banner. In an interview with Syria’s North Press Agency (NPA) on Monday, the spokesman, Mahmoud Habib, explained that the SDF has had to modify and expand intelligence efforts to protect from the growing ISIS threat.
“He noted that ISIS exploited the security vacuum left by the haphazard withdrawal of Syrian regime forces, who abandoned weapons and military equipment without securing them,” NPA reported. “This allowed ISIS fighters to seize arms and munitions.”
The ISIS terrorists have moved their operations into “remote and rugged desert areas” near the Iraqi border following the rise of HTS, he explained, which does not have any known friendly relations with the jihadists and has vowed to centralize power under its rule and eliminate rival militants.
According to Habib, the SDF has executed “75 operations against the Islamic State (ISIS) in coordination with the U.S.-led Global Coalition since December 2024.” The group has also engaged in “some coordination with regime military units from Damascus and Aleppo to stabilize the region,” but the report did not clarify if this meant coordination with the Assad regime before its fall or with HTS.
HTS, which is operating as the de facto government of Syria under its leader Ahmed al-Sharaa, reported via the state-run Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) on Sunday that its intelligence operatives had successfully captured a high-ranking ISIS terrorist planning imminent attacks. SANA identified the terrorist as “Abu al-Harith al-Iraqi” and described him as “responsible for overseeing the file of new arrivals” from around the world into the jihadist network based in Syria and Iraq.
“Al-Iraqi had been behind planning several operations, the most prominent of which was the assassination of the leader, Maysar al-Jubouri – may Allah have mercy on him – along with several other assassinations,” an anonymous “source” told SANA.
The SDF confirming that it has engaged in operations with the United States follows alarming statements in December from its top leader, Gen. Mazloum Abdi, that the Kurdish-led fighters had “halted” operations with the United States because of increased attacks from the Turkey-backed jihadists of the Syrian National Army (SNA). The SNA operates essentially as a Turkish proxy force and increased its attacks on the SDF in the immediate aftermath of the fall of Aleppo to HTS. Turkey considers the largest groups in the SDF, the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG/YPJ), indistinguishable from the terrorist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and considers their destruction a priority, despite their positive relationship with NATO ally America.
“ISIS is now stronger in the Syrian desert,” Abdi, the SDF commander, told the British Sky News agency in December. “Previously, they were in remote areas and hiding, but now they have greater freedom of movement since they face no issues with other groups and are not engaged in conflict with them.”
Abdi warned that SDF-controlled prisons housing tens of thousands of Islamic State jihadists captured during the fall of Raqqa in 2017 were also under “significant threat” thanks to the Turkish proxy attacks.
The SNA has not traditionally enjoyed good relations with HTS, but HTS leaders have expressed a strong willingness to involve Turkey in their efforts to rebuild post-war Syria. Sharaa, the terrorist currently running the country, visited Ankara in early February to forge closer ties to the government of Islamist strongman Recep Tayyip Erdogan, calling for joint actions at “all political, economic, and security levels” with Turkey.
Sharaa has also attempted, however, to maintain a diplomatic relationship with Syria’s large Kurdish minority, much of it in SDF territory in the north. Sharaa visited the Kurdish city of Afrin on Saturday to hold conversations with both leaders and locals on centralizing power in Damascus. An issue of top concern for residents, according to the Kurdish outlet Rudaw, was that assorted militias were forcing locals to pay “taxes” to fund their weapons, a matter Sharaa promised to resolve.
“Some factions continue to impose taxes and levies on the people, arresting and humiliating those unable to pay, and we continue to suffer from the factional situation to this moment,” a letter to Sharaa from the local Kurdish leadership read. “Hundreds of families returning to their villages are living with relatives because factions allow them to return to their homes only after paying large sums of money, of course in dollars (hundreds of dollars, and sometimes thousands), which discourages some people from returning.”
While Rudaw did not name the militias, Afrin has been a target of Turkish-backed ethnic cleansing campaigns for many years and the militias involved are likely associated with Ankara. Rudaw pointedly reported that Turkish-allied groups were not included in the talks between Sharaa and local leaders.
Follow Frances Martel on Facebook and Twitter.
