Can Syria keep the world safe from IS fighters?NEWS | 28 January 2026Will Christou reports on Syria for the Guardian and has been watching the new government’s lightning-fast takeover of territory in the country’s north-east. “All of a sudden, two major provinces that were under the Kurdish forces’ control fell in a number of hours and Syrian government forces swept in,” he tells Annie Kelly.
Soon the forces were at al-Hawl camp, the largest camp holding suspected Islamic State militants – and then they were taking it over. In the chaos of the handover, more than 100 prisoners escaped and not all were found again. The camps have long been controversial: al-Hawl has an area filled with foreign fighters whose governments, for the most part, refuse to take them back. Then there are the women and children, some of whom have grown up at the camp. Thousands are languishing there, suspected but never tried.
“The first thing you notice about al-Hawl is how far away it is from everything else in the world,” Christou says. “It is tucked away in a remote corner of northern Syria in the desert where there’s no cell service and the roads are bumpy and pockmarked and really there’s not much around. The second thing you notice about the camp is just how big it is. There’s security guards everywhere, fences upon fences.”
Running the camps, keeping the prisoners safe – and keeping the outside world safe from IS militants – is no easy task. “I think the Syrian government is going to ask countries to take their nationals back,” Christou says. “But they could be saddled with tens of thousands of suspected Isis fighters and members for years to come. And this is a government that is coming out of a 14-year civil war and doesn’t have much money. If they’re not vigilant, this could become a huge security issue, not only for Syria but for the entire region.”Author: Homa Khaleeli. Annie Kelly. William Christou. Ivor Manley. Alex Atack. Source
