US-led coalition to expand IS prison in Syria to prevent breakouts

The US-led International Coalition in Syria is to double the size of a major northeastern prison facility in Hassakeh province according to Defense One.

The planned expansion will help the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) - who oversee the running of the centre that holds around 5,000 suspected Islamic State group militants - increase security and reduce the chance of a breakout. 

The UK Ministry of Defence has confirmed in a statement that it will provide "technical advice and funding for the refurbishment and expansion", and once completed will ensure the facility meets standards set by the Red Cross. 

IS prisoners are currently being held in three former school buildings that have been converted into detention facilities. Dilapidated conditions and chronic overcrowding have resulted in prisoners effectively running the prison themselves. 

"What [the expansion] affords them to do is to really spread [the prisoners] out a little more so you don't have the networks that are building inside of the facilities," Lt. Gen. Paul Calvert, the commander of the US-led mission, told Defense One. 

Calvert explained that although the SDF does conduct periodic sweeps in the centre for contraband, overcrowding and a lack of guards make such searches risky for officials. 

The US has indicated that it will provide some funding for the project, but this will be focused on shoring up the external perimeter of the camp and intelligence. 

Calvert added that the US seeks to have a better understanding of the networks that exist inside the prison. 

"The better we can understand the networks inside of the facilities and what external linkages they have, the better we are able to use that as a means to drive targeting and against those that are external to the process," he said.

The issue of what to do with captured IS fighters and their families, particularly foreign ones, has been a thorn in the side of the International Coalition and successive Western governments. 

The SDF is not equipped to take complete custody of they detainees and it lacks the legal authority to do so. 

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Some IS fighters were returned to Iraq, but the speed of these trials, the alleged use of torture to secure confessions, and the lack of competent defence lawyers, has resulted in intense criticism of the process 

For the International Coalition and their SDF partners, holding the former fighter is currently their only option and it is hoped that the planned expansion will contain the security threat until a lasting solution can be found. 

"If you have a breakout up there, that's instant combat power that immediately goes back into the Daesh organization and they're ready, willing and able to fight and still are committed to that fight," Calvert said.

The Islamic State group once held large swathes of territory in Syria and Iraq, but by 2019 had lost all its land and has since reverted to a strategy of insurgency.   

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