WASHINGTON, United States
The United States has captured an ISIS leader who helped members of the terror group after they escaped from a detention facility in Syria, according to U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM).
CENTCOM forces, working with
Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), captured Khaled Ahmed al-Dandal on Sunday,
according to a release,
just days after five ISIS foreign terrorist fighter detainees fled the Raqqah
Detention Facility.
Three of the escapees remain
at large, according to CENTCOM, after SDF recaptured two others. Al-Dandal was
assessed as a “facilitator” aiding efforts of detained ISIS fighters.
More than 9,000 ISIS detainees
are held in over 20 SDF detention facilities in Syria, the military said, and
ISIS wants to free its detained fighters and “subsequently fuel an ISIS
revival.”
Gen. Michael Erik Kurilla,
CENTCOM commander, called the numbers “a literal and figurative ‘ISIS Army’ in
detention.”
“If a large number of these
ISIS fighters escaped, it would pose an extreme danger to the region and
beyond,” Kurilla said in a statement, adding that the U.S. will continue to
work with the international community to repatriate the ISIS fighters to their
countries of origin.
Last week, the U.S. military
and Iraqi Security Forces targeted ISIS militants in a
separate raid that left at least 15 of the group’s operatives dead in
Western Iraq.
The latest developments come
as threats from terrorist groups such as ISIS come into new focus three
years after the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, worrying security
experts. Last month, ISIS-affiliated actors carried out a stabbing
attack in Germany and threatened a
Taylor Swift concert in Austria.
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