Syria camp clashes with IS leave four dead

Four people including a child were killed in clashes between Islamic State group fighters and Kurdish forces in a northeast Syria camp housing relatives of jihadists, a war monitor said Tuesday.

Around 56,000 people live in Al-Hol, an overcrowded Kurdish-run camp for displaced people that has been plagued by murders and regular escape attempts, according to the United Nations.

The camp hosts about 10,000 foreigners, including the wives and children of IS fighters who are detained in a high-security annex guarded by Kurdish forces.

“Violent clashes between security forces responsible for the camp and IS cells” broke out on Monday night, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The clashes “resulted in the death of a man, a woman and a child (…) and the killing of one member of an IS cell”, the Observatory added.

Four women and six children were also injured in the fighting, said the Britain-based monitor, which relies on a wide network of sources inside Syria.

Kurdish Asayish security forces said that clashes started after members of an armed “cell” attacked one of their patrols in Al-Hol.

The perpetrators used kalashnikovs, pistols and rocket-propelled grenades during the attack, the Asayish said in a statement.

The Asayish did not identify the attackers but said they were hiding among IS relatives held in the camp.

“Our forces managed to kill one of the cell members,” the statement said.

Kurdish forces warned last week that a lack of international support risked allowing for a jihadist resurgence, as they marked three years since the declared defeat of IS’s so-called caliphate.

Kurdish authorities have repeatedly called on Western countries to repatriate their nationals held in northeast Syria, but most have been reluctant due to fears of a domestic political backlash.