The fighting in al-Hasakeh in northeastern Syria has been going on since last night, when a car bomb detonated and a force of about 100 IS members went on the offensive.

The prison they attacked is one of the largest where Kurdish forces are holding suspected IS terrorists in custody.

As many as 3,500 prisoners are being held in Gweiran Prison.

According to information to SVT, at least four Swedish IS members are imprisoned there.

According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), at least 23 Kurdish soldiers and nearly 40 IS members have been killed in the past 24 hours.

Civilians fleeing

Pictures from al-Hasakeh show explosions and people leaving their homes.

- Since yesterday, there have been bombings and fighter jets in the air, and young people have been slaughtered.

The situation is catastrophic, says Umm Ibrahim to the news agency AFP.

Exemption attacks on prisons have long been a central part of IS propaganda.

Several dozen prisoners are said to have been liberated in the attack, but the Kurdish-led SDF forces claim to have captured 89 fleeing prisoners.

The SDF is supported by the US-led coalition against IS, which reportedly took part in the fighting with air strikes.

At the same time in Iraq

In addition to the attack in al-Hasakah, a military establishment in eastern Iraq was attacked at about the same time, while the soldiers were asleep. Eleven Iraqi soldiers were killed before the attackers fled.

IS has said it is behind the attack, which is the bloodiest in Iraq so far this year, but it is not clear whether the two attacks have been coordinated.

Intensified attacks

The Kurdish forces played a crucial role in the fight against IS and have long sounded the alarm that they do not have enough resources to keep a total of about 12,000 IS members from 50 different countries in custody in prisons in northern Syria. IS the last remnant of its self-proclaimed so-called caliphate, the territory they controlled in Iraq and Syria.

But the terrorist sect remains in smaller groups and in recent months, attacks from IS cells have intensified.