ISIS-Gefängnisse und -Lager schwanken in einem fragilen Syrien, während Aid Peters aussteigt

In a wing of the notorious Al Sina prison in northeastern Syria, where some of the world’s most dangerous inmates are held, guards wearing balaclavas stood along a corridor lined with cells. A prisoner pressed his face to a small, square hole in one of the cell doors. Behind him, some 20 other prisoners in brown jumpsuits sat barefoot on the floor.

“Is Biden still the U.S. president?” he asked a visiting journalist. The prisoner, a British Islamic State member, didn’t get an answer.

Visiting journalists are instructed not to answer any questions from inmates seeking even mundane information. Guards are also prohibited from speaking to them about current events.

Inmates at Al Sina don’t even know who the president of Syria is—that dictator Bashar al-Assad is gone and former jihadists once linked to al Qaeda and Islamic State are governing Syria. The less they know, the more secure are Al Sina prison and Syria, say prison officials.

The high-walled prison is part of a network in the region of more than two dozen detention facilities holding Islamic State members and their families since a U.S.-backed coalition led by Kurdish militias defeated the group in 2019. They are home to the largest population of Islamic State prisoners in the world, and those considered the most dangerous are held at Al Sina.

U.S. military commanders and regional security experts have warned that the detainee population is an unresolved security dilemma threatening a new and uncertain Syria. Islamic State has targeted the camps and prisons with propaganda and messages to stir unrest—part of the reason the most dangerous prisoners held in Al Sina are kept under an information blackout.

Read more: [https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/isis-prisons-and-camps-are-festering-in-a-fragile-syria-as-aid-peters-out-6f6f64c1?st=hJfi3Z&mod=wsjreddit](https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/isis-prisons-and-camps-are-festering-in-a-fragile-syria-as-aid-peters-out-6f6f64c1?st=hJfi3Z&mod=wsjreddit)