AL-HASAKAH, Syria — Jan. 20 was as normal a day as any in the al-Hol detainment camp for the wives and children of Islamic State (ISIS) fighters in northeast Syria. “It was calm,” Sara Hassan — the Syrian Kurdish official who is responsible for both al-Hol and Roj, the other internment camp for ISIS families that lies on the edge of Syria’s border with Iraq — recalled. Then came the news that at 1:30 p.m. local time an ISIS cell had encircled members of the Asayish, the local Kurdish-led internal security force near the town of Al-Hol, and killed one of them. Soon after, ISIS detainees within the camp embarked on a rampage, burning, ransacking and looting the offices of the camp administrators as well as those of international aid groups based in al-Hol. “It was clearly a coordinated attack. At 3:30 p.m. we made our first call to the [US-led anti-ISIS] coalition seeking their help,” Hassan told Al-Monitor. 

“We made at least six more phone calls through our usual intermediary, telling them it was urgent, and we got no reply,” Hassan said. She showed this reporter the text messages that she said had been relayed to the coalition via a translator.

A certain Captain Kamal, the coalition officer responsible for liaising with civilian officials at al-Hol, who was “always very sympathetic” and a regular visitor, left the calls and texts unanswered. The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which until recently was the coalition’s lead partner in the campaign against ISIS, had no luck, either. “The Americans did nothing. They abandoned us to our fate,” Hassan noted.

It soon became clear that the ethnic Arabs charged with guarding the camp had also abandoned them. “We discovered they had left their positions. Some left their weapons behind; others removed their uniforms and joined the government. It was an uprising. Who knows how many of the detainees escaped, but you can be sure that there were many,” asserted Hassan, who remained visibly shaken by the ordeal.