Four people including IS suspects arrested in US-led air landing in northeast Syria

Four people including IS suspects arrested in US-led air landing in northeast Syria
Four people, including Islamic State group suspects, were arrested in a northeast Syria village on Sunday after US-led troops made a landing.
2 min read
25 September, 2023
The US-led military coalition works alongside the Kurdish-led SDF [Getty]

The US-led international coalition in Syria fighting remnants of the Islamic State group (IS) carried out an air landing operation in the country’s northeast on Sunday, arresting four suspected militants.

The air landing took place in the village of Umm Jaloud in Syria’s Hasakah governorate, a correspondent of The New Arab’s sister site Al-Araby Al-Jadeed said, citing sources from the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

Four people were arrested, with some accused of being linked to IS.

Among the detainees was an Iraqi citizen believed to be a leader in the organisation.

The US-led military coalition did not announce the operation.

Earlier this month, the SDF announced the arrest of an IS leader in cooperation with the Counter-Terrorism Service in northern Iraq’s Kurdish autonomous region as well as the global coalition. The militant was captured in Syria’s Deir az-Zour governorate.

The Global Coalition against IS has been active in Syria for years. They cooperate with the SDF which took part in the 2019 battle to push IS militants out of large swathes of territory they once controlled in the war-ravaged country.

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Although defeated, the extremist group remains active in smaller numbers across the Syrian Desert, carrying out attacks targeting civilians, members of rival armed factions and regime personnel.

According to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, IS cells have carried out 121 attacks in areas controlled by the Kurdish-led Autonomous Administration in northeastern Syria (of which SDF is the military branch) since the start of this year.

These attacks have resulted in the death of 78 people, including 17 civilians, and 56 members of the SDF and other affiliated groups. Four IS militants are also among the casualties as well as one person who could not be identified.

The Syrian conflict, which began in 2011 after President Bashar al-Assad's regime brutally suppressed peaceful protests, has killed well over half a million people and displaced half of the country’s pre-war population, drawing in international actors and extremist groups.