A bus carrying 28 women fighters from the Women’s Protection Units, affiliated with the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), arrived in the city of al-Hasakah (northeastern Syria) on Monday afternoon after they were released by the Syrian government, as part of implementing understandings stemming from the January 29 agreement between the two sides, according to Enab Baladi’s correspondent in al-Hasakah.
Hours before the bus arrived, the official website of al-Hasakah Governorate published a list of the names of the women fighters included in the release decision, in a step that comes as part of a series of prisoner exchanges and releases carried out by both sides since the beginning of this year.
More Than 1,200 Released
Al-Hasakah Deputy Governor Ahmed al-Hilali said the new release comes “as part of the presidential team’s follow-up on implementing the January 29 agreement,” explaining that 28 SDF women fighters were released today, bringing the number of those released to more than 1,200 people since implementation of the agreement began.
Al-Hilali added that the relevant government bodies are “committed to ending the file of all detainees covered by the agreement,” stressing that the detainees file, along with the file of displaced people and those forcibly displaced, is being handled as “a non-negotiable humanitarian file.”
He noted that some individual cases may see delays in release procedures, explaining that this is due to the existence of other legal cases against some detainees that are not linked to their affiliation with the SDF, and that these files are being addressed according to the approved legal frameworks.
Al-Hilali also considered that the next phase will see “more acceleration in the integration process in a positive manner,” referring to the implementation track for other provisions in the agreement signed between the Syrian government and the SDF.
Release Operations
This batch is the latest stage in the ongoing release operations between the two sides over recent months.
On May 25, the Syrian government released 88 SDF fighters it had detained, in an operation carried out under the supervision of the presidential team tasked with following up on implementation of the agreement, and in the presence of al-Hasakah Internal Security Commander Brigadier General Marwan al-Ali and his deputy, Brigadier General Mahmoud Khalil, according to local sources at the time.
Before that release, 232 detainees were released in March in what was described at the time as the fourth batch of release operations for SDF fighters detained by the Syrian government.
On April 11, the two sides also carried out a broad exchange operation, during which 400 SDF fighters held by the Syrian government were released in return for the release of 90 detainees held by the SDF.
Before that, on March 19, another exchange took place, including the release of 300 detained SDF fighters in return for the same number of detainees held by the SDF, ahead of Eid al-Fitr.
Between March 8 and 10, al-Hasakah Governorate witnessed successive exchange operations, beginning with the release of 59 SDF fighters on March 8, then completed on March 10 with the release of 100 detainees from each side, in an operation carried out near the southern entrance to al-Hasakah city.
Implementing the January Agreement
The mutual release operations fall under a broader agreement between the Syrian government and the SDF, reached on January 29, following field changes in northeastern Syria during the second half of January.
Those developments coincided with the Syrian army extending its control over Raqqa Governorate and large parts of the countryside of Deir Ezzor and al-Hasakah. At the same time, the SDF retreated to the main city centers in al-Hasakah Governorate, especially the cities of al-Hasakah and Qamishli, in addition to the Ayn al-Arab (Kobani) area in eastern Aleppo countryside.
Those changes were followed by the signing of an agreement between the two sides that included a set of provisions related to integrating the military, security, and service institutions affiliated with the SDF into the structures of Syrian government ministries and institutions, alongside carrying out mutual releases of detainees and working to return displaced people and those forcibly displaced to their areas of origin.
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