More than 100 insurgents late Thursday attacked the Kurdish-run Ghwayran jail in Hasakeh city to free their fellows, in the most significant Daesh operation since it was defeated in Syria nearly three years ago.
Intense fighting since then has seen the militants free detainees and seize weapons stored at the jail, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, in what experts see as a bold Daesh attempt to regroup.
"At least 84 Daesh members and 45 Kurdish fighters, including internal security forces, prison guards and counter-terrorism forces, have been killed" inside and outside the prison since the start of the attack, the Observatory said.
Seven civilians have also died in the fighting in the northeastern city, it added.
The battles continued on Sunday as the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), backed by coalition strikes, closed in on Daesh targets inside and outside the facility.
The SDF said in a statement its forces sealed off the area around the jail and that "Daesh fighters located within the gates of the prison can no longer escape".
According to the Observatory, the SDF have secured most of area and much of the facility itself with the exception of some cell blocks where holdout Daesh militants have yet to surrender.
An AFP correspondent in the city's Ghwayran neighbourhood reported the sound of heavy shelling in areas immediately surrounding the jail, which houses at least 3,500 suspected Daesh members.
The SDF deployed heavily in areas around the prison where they carried out combing operations and used loudspeakers to call on holdout terrorists to surrender, the correspondent said.
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