Islamic State Report on Operations against the SDF in Syria

'Revenge for al-Hol'

Although the Islamic State has repeatedly railed in its propaganda against the new central Syrian government under President Ahmad al-Sharaa (Abu Muhammad al-Jowlani), seeing it (unsurprisingly) as an ‘apostate’ entity that should be fought and overthrown, the group has yet to claim any military operations against it. This may be because planned attacks have been disrupted and/or the group does not wish to compromise the security of its cells operating within the central government-held territory.

In contrast, the group continues to claim attacks against the U.S.-backed and Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) based in the north and east of Syria, where the group still remains autonomous, in control of strategic resources and responsible for day-to-day management, despite the March agreement with the central government seeking to merge the SDF into the new Syrian state.

The latest operations claimed by the Islamic State against the SDF in Dayr al-Zur province (‘al-Khayr’) are framed as ‘revenge for al-Hol’: that is, revenge for the supposed mistreatment of Muslims by the SDF in the al-Hol camp, where families of Islamic State members and others who lived in Islamic State-held territories still remain). This is in keeping with the group’s framing of other operations against the SDF, which is treated as synonymous with the Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK). The report on those operations in the group’s al-Naba’ newsletter this week is presented below with translation.