The American military was unable to carry out a plan to transfer about five dozen “high value” Islamic State detainees out of Kurdish-run wartime prisons, The New York Times reported on Sunday (local time).
Citing two American officials, the US-based newspaper reported that the detainees could not be taken out before the Pentagon decided to move its forces out of northern Syria.
The report comes even as the Turkish offensive in the region is underway in Syria with many expressing apprehensions that the move could lead to the resurgence of ISIS.
NYT in its report further highlighted that in the same area on Sunday, hundreds of Islamic State sympathizers escaped from a low-security detention camp in the region.
Ankara is facing increasing international condemnation for a military incursion in Syria with many appealing to it to stop the offensive. France has even stopped the arms sales to Turkey over its offensive in the region.
This comes even as the Kurdish administration in northern Syria announced a deal with the Damascus government on a Syrian troop deployment near the border with Turkey to confront Ankara’s offensive.
“In order to prevent and confront this aggression, an agreement has been reached with the Syrian government… so that the Syrian army can deploy along the Syrian-Turkish border to assist the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF),” the Kurdish administration was quoted as saying in a statement on its Facebook page by Al Jazeera.
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