The Syrian Interior Ministry said on Monday that about 120 Islamic State detainees had escaped from the Shadadi prison, after Kurdish website Rudaw reported that a spokesman for the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), Farhad Shami, said about 1.500 Islamic State members had escaped.
The Syrian Ministry of Defense said that units of the Syrian army and the ministry's special forces entered Shadada after the escape. It said that security forces recaptured 81 fugitives after search and "cleansing" operations in the city and its surroundings, and that efforts were continuing to arrest the remaining fugitives.
Earlier, the Syrian army said that a "certain number" of Islamic State militants had escaped from an SDF-held prison in the eastern town of Shadada, accusing the SDF of freeing them.
After days of fighting with government forces, the SDF agreed on Sunday to withdraw from both Raqqa and Deir el-Zor, two Arab-majority provinces they had controlled for years and home to Syria's main oil fields.
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