Kurdish-led SDF arrests 4 ISIS suspects in eastern Syria with Coalition support
ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) announced on Tuesday that it had arrested four suspected members of the so-called Islamic State in Syria’s Deir al-Zor and Hasakah provinces in separate operations this week.
The SDF Media Centre said in an online posting that its forces had arrested three of the militants “in al-Fidyn village, south of Al-Swar town, Deir Ezzor (Deir al-Zor) countryside.”
During the operation, an unspecified quantity of weapons and documents were also reported confiscated.
“The captured terrorists are responsible for supplying and transporting weapons and money,” the SDF said.
Moreover, the SDF’s Coordination and Military Operations Centre on Twitter announced on Wednesday that another Islamic State member had been arrested, also with Coalition support, in al-Shaddadi, located in Hasakah province.
The special units in #SDF with air surveillance by #International_Coalition, arrests a member of #ISIS cell, in a security operation in #Al_Shaddadi, were he was facilitating transporting money to active cells in #NE_Syria, equipments and documents were confiscated. pic.twitter.com/nBsdcAitxB
— Coordination & Military Ops Center - SDF (@cmoc_sdf) February 3, 2021
The suspect was accused of “facilitating transporting money to active cells in #NE_Syria (Northeast Syria), equipments and documents were confiscated.”
Although the SDF and US-led anti-Islamic State Coalition announced the territorial defeat of the Islamic State in Syria in March 2019, sleeper cell attacks persist, especially in liberated territories, in what appears to be a deliberate campaign to destabilize the area.
The SDF recently stepped up operations against the armed group in response to several assassinations it is thought to have carried out over the past few days.
Deir al-Zor has consistently been one of the most unstable regions in those areas in northern Syria now under SDF control. Among the main targets of Islamic State remnants have been ethnic Arab civilians from Deir al-Zor it accuses of working with SDF-affiliated civilian and military institutions in the province.
According to the annual report of the Syria-based Rojava Information Center (RIC) that was released in mid-January, the majority of Islamic State attacks took place in Deir al-Zor, with “only 134 attacks occurring outside the region for all of 2020.”
The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reported that the former Speaker of the People’s Assembly of al-Busayrah city died from his injuries after he was earlier shot by unidentified gunmen on a motorcycle.
The SDF continues their momentum to degrade, disrupt and dismantle the remaining Daesh networks. @CJTFOIR will continue to support our partners and keep pressure on Daesh to deliver a lasting defeat. #DefeatDaesh https://t.co/1ppbZjfrws
— OIR Spokesman Col. Wayne Marotto (@OIRSpox) February 3, 2021
Col. Wayne Marotto, the Spokesman for the Coalition, also known as the Combined Joint Task Force-Operation Inherent Resolve (CJTFOIR), said in a tweet on Wednesday that “the SDF continues their momentum to degrade, disrupt and dismantle the remaining Daesh (ISIS) networks.”
Marotto concluded that the Coalition “will continue to support our partners and keep pressure on Daesh (ISIS) to deliver a lasting defeat.”
Editing by John J. Catherine