Syrian government forces took control of al-Hawl detention camp, which houses tens of thousands of suspected members of the ISIL terror group (also known as ISIS and Daesh), after Kurdish forces withdrew.

Soldiers entered the heavily fortified camp on Wednesday, part of a handover from the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which oversaw the camp for the last seven years, as the Syrian government vowed to secure the facility, The Guardian reported. 

Al-Hawl hosts about 24,000 people of 42 different nationalities, most of whom are family members of suspected ISIL terrorists and alleged members of the group. For years, Kurdish authorities and humanitarians have urged countries to take back their citizens from the camps and prosecute them at home, warning that conditions there were intolerable.

The camp has been the subject of international concern as security experts say it is a hotbed of extremism and in the event of a jailbreak, could help ISIL reconstitute itself in Syria and beyond.

The Syrian government accused Kurdish forces of withdrawing and leaving the prison unguarded, which it said led to the escape of some detainees.

A similar scenario unfolded in Shaddadi prison as the SDF withdrew in front of advancing forces, leading to 120 prisoners escaping. The SDF denied it had let any prisoners escape at either location.

The Syrian defense ministry said on Tuesday it was ready to assume responsibility for al-Hawl and other ISIL detainee camps, and that it was taking the proper procedures to secure the facilities. It was in contact with the so-called US-led international coalition to defeat ISIL, which helps guard the camps.

The SDF still controls a number of prisons and detention camps for suspected members of ISIL, including al-Roj camp, which hosts the London-born Shamima Begum, who was stripped of her British citizenship by the UK government in 2019. She left London as a schoolgirl and travelled in secret with two friends to live under ISIL in 2015.

The SDF has warned the international community over its ability to maintain control over ISIL detention facilities if it comes under attack by the Syrian government once again.

Government forces have swept into north-east Syria over the last week, wresting control of vast swathes of territory. The SDF, which controlled about a third of Syria for the last seven years, lost most of the areas under its control, specifically the vast Arab-majority provinces of Deir ez-Zor and Raqqa.

Fighting paused on Tuesday after the two sides reached a four-day ceasefire, which the Syrian government said was meant to give the SDF a grace period to implement a lasting agreement. The two sides had agreed to a 14-point peace plan in principle, under which the SDF would surrender most of its governing authorities to Damascus and integrate into the Syrian military while leaving Kurdish-majority areas in the north-east to be supervised by local security forces rather than the Syrian military.

If the SDF fails to implement the 14-point agreement, fighting would restart between the two sides.

The Kurdish force has little room to maneuver or to ask for more concessions as the US, its principal backer, has made it clear that it wants the Kurdish authority to be brought into the fold of the state.

On Tuesday, the US Syria envoy, Tom Barrack, said the deal was an “opportunity” for Kurds in Syria to integrate into the Syrian state, and he urged the SDF to accept Damascus’s terms. The “original purpose” of the SDF as a force to fight ISIL had “largely expired”, Barrack said, as Damascus had become Washington’s primary partner in Syria.