Week-Long Operation Loosens Islamic State Grip on Syria's al-Hol Camp

WASHINGTON - U.S.-backed forces in northeastern Syria are hailing significant gains following a nearly week-long effort to clear Islamic State terror group operatives from the region’s largest displaced persons camp, though they warn the danger is far from over.   Officials with the Syrian Democratic Forces and the region’s internal security forces announced the end of what they described as the first phase of an operation to pacify the al-Hol displaced persons camp, a sprawling collection of tents that are home to some 62,000 people, which has become both a hotbed and a hub for IS activity.   The operation, which involved about 5,000 troops searching the camp tent by tent, resulted in the arrests of 125 suspected IS operatives. Officials said 20 of those taken into custody are sleeper cell leaders responsible for a wave of more than 40 execution-style killings that has gripped al-Hol since the start of the year.   “Many members of the IS terrorist organization have moved to the camps as civilians in order to reorganize the camp and create a conducive atmosphere,” Ali al-Hassan, a spokesman for the internal security forces, said in a statement Friday.

But al-Hassan underscored the danger from IS in the camp “is not over.”   “Without international support it will not last long,” he said of the recent gains. “The international community must help, and the citizens of every country must return to their homeland." The vast majority of the population are women and children, almost half of them under the age of 12, forced from their homes as IS established and then lost a self-declared caliphate that spanned swaths of Syria and Iraq. Thousands more are the wives, children and relatives of hard core IS fighters, left without anywhere to go when the caliphate ultimately collapsed two years ago.   In the weeks leading up the just-completed SDF-led crackdown, U.S. and western intelligence and security officials warned it was increasingly evident that the IS families had not given up the cause, and they were instead treating al-Hol as “the final remnant of the 'caliphate.’” U.S. officials told VOA many of them had become active in smuggling rings, using criminal networks to smuggle out some families from al-Hol, while sneaking in IS sleeper cell operatives and weapons.   Other officials highlighted growing evidence that al-Hol has become a key hub in the terror group’s rebuilt financial network, helping it move cash from Turkey to cells across Syria.