ISIS has an army in waiting — and Trump's next move could decide whether it rises again
In a network of prisons and detention camps across Syria, the Islamic State militant group or ISIS, has an army in waiting, and support for its regime lives on.
HASAKAH, Syria — In a network of prisons and detention camps across northeastern Syria, the Islamic State militant group has an army in waiting, and fanatical support for its brutal regime lives on.
For now the prisons and camps are guarded by the American-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a Kurdish-led fighting force that battled alongside the U.S. military to destroy ISIS’ so-called caliphate.
The Islamist group’s radical ideology was never fully defeated, and after the ouster of longtime Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad late last year, as well as the arrival of a new administration in Washington, some are fearful that ISIS could be unleashed on the world once again.
In northern Syria, around 10,000 alleged ISIS fighters are locked away in 28 jails, the largest of which is Al Sina Prison on the edge of the small city of Hasakah.
Crowded in the drab, concrete prison are thousands of men, many of them captured on the battlefield during ISIS’ last stand in 2019, who sit or lie around in tattered brown jailhouse uniforms, dozens in each cell.
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