Kurdish-led forces target ISIS smuggling network in Syria
ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – The US-backed, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) on Wednesday announced that they had carried out a large-scale operation against an Islamic State smuggling network in Syria’s eastern Deir al-Zor province.
“Our Counter-Terrorism units carried out a wider operation against an ISIS sleeper-cell that were responsible for running a smuggling network of logistical equipment, weapons and other armory,” the SDF press office said in a statement, which added that multiple militants were captured in three separate operations in Diban, Busayra, and Hajin.
“Our forces targeted their logistical and weapons supply-lines as well as the ISIS members responsible for the network. The members of the smuggler-network posed a threat and carried out attacks on the population with the items that were being traded,” the SDF said.
As well as the arrest of the individuals suspected of being part of the smuggling network, said the statement, “A large number of weapons and armory and miscellaneous documents were seized during the operation.”
The SDF stated that the operation would have the effect of foiling future attempts of the group to carry out new attacks.
Col. Myles Caggins, spokesman for the US-led anti-Islamic State coalition, formally known as Combined Joint Task Force-Operation Resolve (CJTF-OIR), told Kurdistan 24 that the SDF “are tenacious in their pursuit of ISIS remnants.”
“Finding this weapons cache will hinder Daesh’s [Islamic State’s] ability to threaten the local civilian people.”
Caggins later called attention to the raids in a tweet, referring to the SDF as the coalition’s “security partners in Syria.”
The @CJTFOIR security partners in Syria are catching ISIS smugglers in Deir ez Zor. ?? Hevalbendên me yên ewlekariyê li Rojava avêtin ser toreke DAIŞê ya kaçaxiyê û dest danîn ser hejmareke mezin ji çekan. Destxweş! ?? قسد، تجعل دير الزور أكثرُ أماناً pic.twitter.com/3AO0veDvHo
— OIR Spokesman Col. Myles B. Caggins III (@OIRSpox) December 12, 2019
After US President Donald Trump’s decision in late October to leave about 500 to 600 American troops in Syria to protect oilfields, the SDF continued counter-Islamic State operations, including those targeting the extremist group’s smuggling networks.
On Dec. 4, the SDF arrested Shawaysh Sattam Saud Al-Ajrash Al-Thabti Al-Shammari, who is accused of being responsible for smuggling Islamic State fighters from Syria’s sprawling detention camps to Iraq.
Counter-terrorism units also arrested those belonging to an Islamic State smuggling network in late November that was attempting to smuggle Islamic State-affiliated women from al-Hol Camp to Turkish-controlled territories.
Read More: Kurdish-led forces bust ISIS human smuggling ring in north Syria
Nicholas Heras, a Fellow at the Center for a New American Security, told Kurdistan 24 that “the SDF preserved the bulk of its counter-terror units even during the height of the Turkish-led operation into northeast Syria [in early October].”
“This decision was a practical one because ISIS still has a deadly sleeper cell network in large areas of northeast Syria and without constant pressure from the SDF, there is a great risk of the terrorist organization resurging.”
He also underlined that there has also been close coalition support for the SDF to continue its fight against the Islamic State “throughout the period of the Turkish operation, because the SDF is the only local partner the coalition has that can effectively fight ISIS.”
Editing by John J. Catherine