Syrian authorities have closed Al Hol camp, the notorious prison that once housed thousands of families with suspected ties to ISIS, after its last inmates moved out.
Monzer Al Salal of the Stabilisation Support Unit, which runs a programme for former Al Hol inmates with the Syrian government, confirmed to The National on Monday that Al Hol is "now empty and closed, and that all remaining families have been transferred" to another camp.
The detention centre, in a desert region of Hasakah province, was once home to about 24,000 people, including children born in the camp who don't know life outside. It also housed more than 6,000 foreigners of about 40 nationalities who were denied repatriation to their home countries.
The camp was long run by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), who treated it as a "high-risk" facility and warned that its residents were a "ticking time bomb". But control of the camp was transferred to the Syrian government last month after the SDF ceded vast areas of territory and Damascus took control of the north-east.
An hours-long security vacuum during the chaotic handover led to the escape of thousands from the camp, including those with suspected links to ISIS. Only a few hundred families remained, and all have now been transferred to other camps in Syria and Iraq.
The SDF was once Washington's main ally in Syria and played a vital role in defeating ISIS. But its position took a major hit as the US shifted alliances to support the new Syrian government's takeover of Kurdish-held territory. Still, the US Central Command launched a mission to transfer ISIS prisoners to Iraq this month, in a separate process from the camps, indicating Washington’s distrust in Syria's ability to ensure security.
The UN and human rights groups have long called for the closure of the camp. They denounced the site as a place of “arbitrary detention,” where thousands of families were left to languish without trial or charges, in dire conditions. Contrary to widespread belief, many residents of Al Hol were civilians uprooted by violence. They were held side by side with alleged ISIS members.
The handover of the ISIS-linked camps and prisons has raised international concerns about a potential ISIS resurgence, with sleeper cells still active in Syria and Iraq.
ISIS declared war on the Syrian government of President Ahmad Al Shara on Sunday, describing it as illegitimate because of its links with Turkey and the US. Abu Hudhayfah Al Ansari, an ISIS spokesman, said in a recorded message that Syria has entered a “new chapter” of struggle, calling Mr Al Shara “a new despot” whose fate “will not be better” than that of the former dictator Bashar Al Assad.
The group claimed responsibility for two weekend attacks on army personnel in the north and east of the country.
Syria joined the US-led anti-ISIS coalition in November. Mr Al Shara turned against ISIS in the middle stages of his time as an insurgent, which ended when he led his Hayat Tahrir Al Sham group on an 11-day offensive that toppled the Assad regime in December 2024.
