Kurdish-led forces capture three ISIS operatives in Hasaka: Monitor

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Security forces in northeast Syria’s (Rojava) Hasaka province captured three Islamic State (ISIS) operatives, including a high-ranking member, a war monitor reported on Tuesday. 

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a UK-based war monitor, said that three ISIS members disguised as shepherds were captured during a raid, with assistance from the US-led global coalition. 

ISIS rose to power and seized swathes of Iraqi and Syrian land amid a brazen offensive in 2014, declaring a so-called “caliphate”. 

Though the jihadists no longer control any territory, they continue to pose a security risk by carrying out kidnappings, hit-and-run attacks, and bombings, and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), who control Rojava, conduct frequent operations against the group.

The Kurdish-led and US-backed SDF fought the lion’s share of the battle against ISIS and arrested thousands of the group’s fighters along with their wives and children when they crushed ISIS territorially and took the group’s last stronghold in Syria in 2019.

In late March, the SDF warned that ISIS still poses a threat to the world and the region as its defeat “requires dismantling its ideological breeding ground.” 

“ISIS is still trying to recruit new terrorist elements, attempting to radicalize them into its ranks,” said the SDF, calling on the international community to “collaborate effectively” with its forces.