While Turkey is waging a violent campaign against Kurdish fighters and civilians in northern Syria, Ankara-backed forces linked to militant groups have released fighters jailed in Kurdish prisons, ISIS fighters, two US officials told Foreign Policy.

The claim came as cold water poured into what US President Donald Trump said on his Twitter account that Kurdish guards guerrillas had released the detainees in order to draw US attention after the Pentagon ordered all US soldiers to withdraw from the area.

These Turkish-backed forces are called the Free Syrian Army (FSA), a group of militants associated with militant groups who have launched a violent attack on northern Syria, killing many SDF and many civilians.

The Free Syrian Army is also called the “Turkish-backed opposition,” which began in 2011 as a group of mainly Syrian army defectors who were trying to overthrow the Syrian government. In 2013, the FSA began to join Jabhat al-Nusra, which was also fighting the Syrian government and had ties to al-Qaeda.

Recruitment

The CIA began recruiting FSA forces to fight ISIS fighters in 2014, when the terrorist organization seized large positions in Syria and Iraq. But FSA forces were still linked to Jabhat al-Nusra, and some began to show radical ideologies, said Malisa Dattlon, an expert at the Center for Strategic and Global Studies. Eventually, the United States suspended its relationship with the Free Syrian Army, because the group lacked organization and was unreliable to fight IS.

The United States has evidence that the prisons, which the SDF has said it can no longer guard because they have become in the hands of Turkish-backed forces, are the ones from which the prisoners were released, according to senior administration officials. This means that the Turkish-backed forces have released the prisoners. But the Turkish government used video footage of an empty prison in the northern Syrian town of Tal Abyad to claim that the SDF deliberately released ISIS operatives before fleeing the Turkish offensive.

"Turkish forces attacked a prison in Tall Abyad earlier in the hope that they would take the ISIS prisoners who were here," a Turkish government official told the Turkish media. Our forces there, the PKK and the YPG have released prisoners in the hope of fueling chaos in the region. ”

Trump fought a war of information on Monday, tweeting that "Kurdish forces may have released prisoners from IS to force us to intervene," a charge US officials said was untrue.

Peace is fragile

Northern Syria, which was living in fragile peace under the leadership of the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Forces (SDF) and its political arm, the Syrian Democratic Council, was in disarray after the US president gave Turkey the green light to move to occupy the region. About six days after the Turkish army entered the area, some 800 prisoners and their families who were fighting within ISIS escaped from Ein Isa camp in northern Syria.

There are about 10,000 prisoners who have been fighting with ISIS in Iraq and Syria. They are distributed in a number of prisons in different areas in northern Syria. Area, including 70,000 living in the Hul refugee camp.

US military officials have been warning for months that camps such as the Sphinx are the epicenter of extremist ideology, and that it produces many ISIS extremists. The camps are home to tens of thousands of women who worked for IS and their children, said Maj. Gen. Alice Greenquitch, deputy commander of the US-led military coalition that was fighting IS in Syria. "The real danger for me is the next generation of ISIS, which is being programmed here in these camps and foreshadowing the emergence of a more radical generation than their parents whom we have fought for many years," Greenwich said. "For the global campaign to eliminate ISIS, you must not forget the danger of the next generation."

- The area of ​​northern Syria, which used to live in peace

Fragile under the leadership of the SDF

Kurdish and its political arm Council of Syria

Democracy, it was in chaos

After the US president gave Turkey the green light

To move to occupy the area.