EXCLUSIVEThis was the kind of prison break that officials say could have changed the region, and perhaps even the world, overnight.
Nearly 6,000 ISIS detainees, described by a senior U.S. intelligence official as “the worst of the worst,” were held in northern Syria as clashes and instability threatened the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, the guards responsible for locking up the militants and preventing a feared ISIS resurgence. US officials believed that if the prisons collapsed in the chaos, the consequences would be immediate.
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ISIS women and children remain in ‘fragile’ Syrian detention camps under Damascus control, while male fighters are transferred to Iraq, leaving the detention crisis unresolved. (Santiago Montag/Anadolu via Getty Image)
The risk, the official explained, had been increasing for months. In late October, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard began assessing that Syria’s transition could lead to disorder and create the conditions for a catastrophic prison break.
The ODNI at the time sent the official to Syria and Iraq to begin early discussions with both the SDF and the Iraqi government over how the official repeatedly described the prisoners as the most dangerous before events overtook them.
This fear was fueled in early January when fighting broke out in Aleppo and began to spread eastward. Time was running out to prevent a catastrophe. “We have seen this serious crisis situation,” the official said.
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A fighter from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) holds an ISIL flag and a weapon on a street in the city of Mosul, June 23, 2014. (Reuters photo)
According to the source, the ODNI oversaw daily coordination calls between the agencies as the situation escalated. The official said Secretary of State Marco Rubio was “in charge of day-to-day management” based on policy considerations, while the ODNI directed a working group that kept CENTCOM, diplomats and intelligence officials aligned on the pressing question: how to prevent nearly 6,000 ISIS fighters from being caught in the fog of war.
The Iraqi government, the official said, understood what was at stake. Baghdad had its own reasons for taking swift action, fearing that if thousands of prisoners escaped, they would cross the border and revive a threat that Iraq still remembers in visceral terms.
The official described Iraq’s motivation bluntly: Its leaders recognized that a mass escape could force Iraq back to a situation where ISIS is once again at our border in 2014.
The U.S. Embassy in Baghdad played a crucial role in paving the diplomatic runway for what would become a major logistics undertaking, according to the official.
Then came the physical lift. The official praised CENTCOM’s vast resources in making the plan a reality on the ground, saying that “moving helicopters” and other resources made it possible to remove detainees in a short time frame.
“Thanks to the efforts… deploying helicopters, deploying more resources and then making it logistically possible, we managed to get these almost 6,000 out in just a few weeks,” the official said.
ISIS fighters are still at large after the Syrian prison breach, adding to an unstable security situation
A view of Hol Camp, where families linked to the Islamic State group are being held in Hasakah province, Syria, Wednesday, January 21, 2026. (Izz Aldien Alqasem/Anadolu via Getty Images)
The SDF, he said, had secured the prisons, but its attention was strained by fighting elsewhere, fueling American fears that a single breach could lead to a mass escape. Ultimately, the prisoners were transported to Iraq, where they are now being held in a facility near Baghdad International Airport, under Iraqi authority.
According to the official, the next phase focuses on identification and accountability. FBI teams are in Iraq working to biometrically enroll detainees, the official said, as U.S. and Iraqi officials investigate what intelligence could be released and used in prosecutions.
“What they basically asked us to do is give them as much intelligence and information as we have on these individuals,” the official said. “So right now the priority is identifying these individuals biometrically.”
The official said the State Department is also pushing countries of origin to take responsibility for their citizens held among detainees.
“The State Department is currently doing outreach and encouraging all these different countries to bring in their fighters,” he said.
Although the transfer focused exclusively on ISIS fighters, the senior intelligence official said families held in camps like Al-Hol were not part of the operation, leaving a major unresolved security and humanitarian challenge.
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Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) fighters pose for a photo with the American flag on stage after an SDF victory ceremony was held at the Omer oil field on March 23, 2019 in Baghouz, Syria, announcing the defeat of ISIS in Baghouz. (Chris McGrath/Getty Images)
The camps themselves were under separate regulations, the official said, and responsibility shifted as control on the ground developed.
According to the official, the Syrian Democratic Forces and the Syrian government have reached an agreement that Damascus would take over the al-Hol camp, where thousands of ISIS-affiliated women and children reside.
“As you can see on social media, the al-Hol camp is being virtually emptied,” the official said, adding that it “appears as if the Syrian government has decided to release them,” a scenario the official described as deeply worrying for regional security. “That is very concerning.”
The fate of the families has long been seen by counterterrorism officials as one of the most complicated, unresolved elements of the ISIS detention system. Many of the children grew up in camps after ISIS lost territorial control, and some are now approaching fighting age, raising fears of future radicalization and recruitment.
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Iraqi security forces pose with the ISIS flag they pulled from Anbar University on July 26, 2015. Armed forces clashed with ISIS militants on the ground. (Reuters)
For now, the official said, intelligence agencies are closely monitoring developments following a swift operation that they say prevented thousands of veteran ISIS militants from immediately reentering the battlefield and potentially reactivating the group’s fighting force.
“This is a rare good news story coming out of Syria,” the official concluded.
