ISIS seeks propaganda via prison assaults

Menna Abdel Razek

After ISIS was defeated and lost its last stronghold in Baghouz in Syria, many of its fighters were jailed in prisons of the Syrian Democratic Forces. Some 60,000 ISIS members are estimated to be imprisoned.

However, research centers have warned that these prisons were threatened by ISIS assaults to free these fighters. Former leader of ISIS, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, called on his fighters to free prisoners one month before he was killed.

The US-based Combatting Terrorism Center said in a report titled: “The Evolving Threat of Jihadi Prison Assaults and Riots”, that ISIS wants to force regeneration and free high-value individuals. ISIS takes advantage of prison weak management and launch assaults which are low cost and high rewarding.

The report also warned that ISIS and other jihadi groups have also incited attacks and riots outside of the Levant. With the large number of detained jihadis worldwide, the fear is that the groups to which they belong may either target prisons for attacks with the aim of releasing them or the incarcerated jihadis will spark riots and assault staff.

During the past three years, several notable examples of both types of attacks occurred in several prison systems around the globe. Attacks on prisons happened in Western Europe, Indonesia, Tajikistan and North America. Attacks on prisons also took place in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger.

In January 2019 jihadis attacked prison guards at HMP Whitemoor in the United Kingdom.  In 2018, over 150 prisoners in a section of the detention center holding terrorist offenders broke out of their holding cells, overpowered prison guards, and seized weapons.

The report concluded that the jailbreak strategy is entrenched in the terrorist organizations’ ideological and historical dogmas. It asserted that the terrorist organizations use the jailbreaks for propaganda.