(Reuters) Two Islamic State militants from Belgium have escaped custody in northern Syria in the course of Turkey’s offensive against Kurdish forces there, the head of Belgium’s security assessment agency said on Wednesday.
Paul Van Tigchelt, head of OCAD, told a parliamentary committee that two men and three women, either Belgian or with links to Belgium, were no longer in prison in a camp where they had been held under Kurdish control since the defeat of Islamic State (IS) by U.S.-backed coalition forces in 2017.
Kurdish officials have said almost 800 IS-affiliated foreigners, many of them women and children, escaped Ain Issa camp in northwestern Syria after the Turkish incursion began last week. There are also fears that jihadists held in jails in Kurdish-controlled areas of northern Syria could escape.
