Islamic State stages Syria prison break, kills 11 soldiers in Iraq

The Islamic State launched its deadliest attacks in years in both Iraq and Syria yesterday, killing 11 Iraqi security forces and attacking a prison holding jihadists in Kurdish-run northeast Syria.  

Wiped off the battlefield in 2019, IS demonstrated its ruthless endurance on Thursday in a pre-dawn attack on an Iraqi army barracks north of the city of Baqouba in Diyala province as soldiers from the 1st Infantry Division were asleep. 

The attack just 75 miles (120 kilometers) north of Baghdad is one of the deadliest attacks in Iraq by the jihadist groups in recent years.

Hours earlier and more than 200 miles (320 kilometers) away, IS fighters detonated a car bomb and skirmished with local Kurdish-led security forces near Sinaa Prison in Syria’s Hasakah province. Initial reports suggested at least some IS detainees escaped the prison’s walls.