Eastern Syria – CBS News was among the first news outlets they spoke to on Thursday Travis TimmermanAn American who was feared dead by family and friends, days after being released from a notorious prison in Syria. He said he spent seven months in prison with today's system.the dictator Bashar al-Assad before the rebels broke down his cell door.
But he was just one of thousands of people locked up over half a century of iron-fisted rule by Assad, and his father before him. Many are still missing, and the rebel forces, together with the families of those who went missing, have made a great effort since Assad fled to Russia on Sunday to find those who disappeared.
But there is one group of prisoners that Syria's still-changing, rebel-led leadership wants to keep behind bars. Five years ago, as US-backed forces battled for control of territory held by ISIS for years, CBS News visited a prison where members of the terrorist group were being held. . This week, CBS News returned to a prison in eastern Syria. Guards said they were still holding thousands of ISIS fighters, but would not say exactly how many.
The prisoners joined the so-called Islamic State from all over the world, but for years they have been locked up – seemingly indefinitely – with 20 or more prisoners to a cell.
Prisoner Hadi Alamelhud told us through a small crack in his cell door that he was a doctor in Windsor, Canada, before he came to live in the self-proclaimed Islamic “caliphate” of ISIS. He said he was caught six years ago, and believes he should be allowed to return home to Canada.
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“We all make mistakes, right?” he told CBS News. “I regret my mistake. Really.”
Alamelhud said that he never fought for ISIS and that he only came as a doctor, “for the people who were there. But I am considered part of the terrorist group.”
He said, like most of his comrades, that he regretted coming to live under the group, which he assumed was a terrorist group, and he expressed hope that he could one day return home.
He said his message for the Canadian government was: “Why didn't they come? Why didn't they ask about me?”
The prison is located in a part of eastern Syria that has been held by US-backed forces for years. These largely Kurdish forces currently control about a quarter of Syria, and the warden told CBS News that the prisoners were not told about the fall of the Assad regime, which was established until right in the capital Damascus, because it could be dangerous.
“There would be disobedience,” he said. “ISIS has been on the move recently, and this prison is important to them. “
It was only about five years ago ISIS has been defeated in Syriawith the help of the US, and CBS News was there for evidence of the capture of Raqqathe de facto capital of the Islamic State, several years before that in 2017.
But ISIS is still hiding in the Syrian desert. It is still a threat. In 2022, ISIS fighters attacked the prison, prompting a jailbreak and a bloody 10-day battle to regain control.
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At a camp not far from the prison, American-backed forces are holding family members – about 6,000 women and children – of ISIS fighters who have been killed or captured. Guards took CBS News inside the al-Hol camp in an armored vehicle. They said that the security situation was getting worse, because unlike the prison holding the male activists, there was information in the camp for families about the fall of the Syrian regime. The guards said that gave the women hope that they will be freed.
One woman there told us that her husband was dead and that she had been at the camp for six years. Like so many at the facility, she had no regrets about ISIS' reign of brutality, and said she still loved the group.
The US military has eliminated ISIS hideouts in Syria with airstrikes since the fall of Assad, determined to stop the insurgents from using the fall of the regime to stage a comeback.
