The arid steppes of northeastern Syria stretch almost uninterrupted to the Iraqi border, the emptiness broken only by the occasional oil derrick, until the road comes to a sprawling prison camp.
A chain-link fence topped with barbed wire surrounds the vast compound, and supply trucks line the route for more than half a mile outside the camp’s gates. This is Al Hol detention camp, where most detainees are family members — wives, sisters, children — of fighters for the terrorist group Islamic State, or ISIS. More than 8,000 fighters themselves are in prisons nearby.
For years, ISIS ruled large parts of Syria and neighboring Iraq, brutally enforcing its strict interpretation of Islamic law. As Kurdish-led Syrian forces backed by the United States battled to reclaim that land, they detained thousands of ISIS fighters and tens of thousands of their relatives.
U.S. forces entrusted their Syrian Kurdish allies with guarding the ISIS detainees and families. But now, the Pentagon is drawing down its troops in Syria, and there are indications that U.S. officials want Syria’s new government to take responsibility for the prisons and detention camps.
Islamic State Camps Pose a Dangerous Problem for Syria’s Leaders
— Aaron Y. Zelin (@azelin) December 10, 2025
The government faces a dilemma over what to do with civil-war-era prisons and detention camps that hold thousands of ISIS fighters and tens of thousands of their family members.https://t.co/T2y5KLVeaN