1500 Isis fighters escape prison camps as Syrian forces push north

But, after toppling the Assad regime in December 2024, new President Ahmed al-Sharaa and his Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) movement have been pushing hard to unify the disparate factions that opposed his dictatorial predecessor.

The goal, ministers claim, is to incorporate the various armed groups into the Syrian military establishment and prevent a return to conflict.

However, government troops – primarily ethnic Arabs and many of whom are left over from HTS’ previous life as the Syrian branch of al-Qaeda – have been locked in on-and-off clashes with the SDF for the past year.

All the while, negotiations on absorbing the SDF into the national security apparatus have stalled, with Kurdish leaders particularly concerned by al-Sharaa’s increasingly close relations with Turkey, which has persecuted Kurdish communities on either side of the border for decades.

While Damascus announced a ceasefire earlier this month, after bombing raids saw thousands flee Aleppo, the SDF declined to commit to the truce, and fresh fighting soon broke out.

Now, both al-Sharaa and the SDF’s leadership have confirmed that a new ceasefire is in place, with the SDF also signing up to a 14-point plan to integrate itself into the Syrian state.

Amid the chaos, hundreds of prisoners have been able to escape the Isis camps, with the latest reports suggesting that al-Shaddadi prison, one of the largest in the area, has emptied out.

Each side has accused the other of facilitating the release of terrorists, as well as a litany of war crimes. Reports also suggest that US troops stationed nearby did not intervene to prevent the escapes, though this has not been independently confirmed.

The Defence Ministry has subsequently claimed that several hundred terrorists have been rounded up and re-arrested, but some remain at large.

There is no confirmation yet as to whether any of the British extremists held in the camps, most notably the now-stateless “Isis bride” Shamima Begum, are free.

Unlike many European countries, the UK does not maintain a policy of repatriating terrorists from Syria to stand trial, instead preferring to deny them entry to the country altogether and, in Begum’s case at least, strip them of citizenship.