US-backed YPG 'retakes' Syria's Hasakah prison from Daesh

US-backed YPG terrorists have regained full control of a prison in the northeastern Syrian city of Hasakah and all remaining Daesh terrorists have surrendered, the YPG said, without mentioning the fate of the hundreds of children and minors caught in the fighting. 

YPG –– the Syrian branch of PKK terrorist organisation that has attacked Turkey for almost 40 years and forms the backbone of Washington-allied so-called Syrian Democratic Forces or SDF –– said it stormed and ended the jail fight on Wednesday. 

At least 200 prison inmates and 30 YPG militants have died since Daesh attacked the jail on Thursday in a bid to free its members, the group said. 

There was no mention by the YPG of the 850 children and minors caught in the crossfire when the YPG aided by US forces began to storm the prison on Monday.

The Pentagon confirmed that the US-led coalition carried out air strikes and deployed ground troops in support of the YPG operation.

"The Islamic State [Daesh] remains an existential threat to the region and it must not be allowed to regenerate," said US Major General John Brennan Jr., commander of Combined Joint Task Force, Operation Inherent Resolve.

"We must thoroughly investigate the circumstances that allowed this [Daesh] attack to happen," he said in a tweet.

Brennan also said the troubles exposed flaws in the overcrowded prison system. 

"The makeshift prisons throughout Syria are a breeding ground for Daesh's failed ideology."

READ MORE: UN warns 850 children stuck in besieged Syria jail 'at risk'

Overcrowded jails

The United Nations and international aid organisations had expressed fear over the fate of the minors living alongside the nearly 5,000 prisoners in the overcrowded jail.

The children were detained during US-backed campaigns that finally drove Daesh from its last territorial enclave in Syria in 2019.

Sina'a prison is the biggest facility where the YPG has kept thousands of detainees, among them Arab youths who defied forcible conscription and others arrested for staging protests against YPG-led rule.

US-based Human Rights Watch says the YPG holds about 12,000 men and boys suspected of Daesh affiliation, including 2,000-4,000 foreigners from almost 50 countries.

The inmates are held in teeming prisons where conditions are inhumane in many cases, according to HRW and other rights groups.

YPG terror group denies these allegations.

The mass detentions in recent years have fuelled growing resentment among Arab tribal members who accuse the YPG forces of racial discrimination.

The YPG-led terrorists also hold about 60,000 Syrian and foreign women and children who are family members of militant suspects in squalid camps across the areas they control.

The fighting has also driven over 45,000 civilians, mostly women and children, out of their homes in areas near the prison.

READ MORE: Clashes displace thousands of Syrians after prison attack

READ MORE: In Syria, the US needs to address the roots of Daesh, not the symptoms