DONALD TRUMP'S SYRIA WITHDRAWAL COULD HELP ISIS STAGE MASS PRISON BREAKS, EXPERTS SAY

https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-syria-withdrawal-isis-mass-prison-breaks-erdogan-kurds-1463566

ISIS has not been defeated, despite Trump's repeated erroneous statements claiming otherwise. Though weak, scattered and deprived of any contiguous "caliphate," thousands of fighters remain active in Iraq, Syria and further afield. A new Turkish front against the Kurds will ease the pressure on ISIS and could see the group recover its potency.

The looming Turkish offensive will weaken Kurdish forces and sow chaos that could be exploited by the prisoners and local ISIS cells, both in the immediate area of operations and other Kurdish-held territory.

As historian and academic Shiraz Maher explained on Twitter, "Trump may actually be on the cusp of creating on the worst national security crises of our time by—albeit inadvertently—fuelling the very circumstances in which all these ISIS prisoners escape. It's absolutely astonishing."

Brett McGurk, who served as the special presidential envoy for the anti-ISIS coalition until he resigned over Trump's Syria strategy in December 2018, warned that Turkey is unable and unwilling to take on responsibility for the largest detention centers in the area.