BEIRUT (AP) — Recent fighting between Syrian government forces and Kurdish fighters in northeast Syria got close to detention facilities where thousands of Islamic State group members are held.
The U.S. military says that it has started the process of transferring many of them to secure locations in Iraq.
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An aerial view shows the al-Hol camp in northeastern Syria's Hasakeh province, Syria, Wednesday, Jan. 21, 2026, after the withdrawal of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). (AP Photo/Ghaith Alsayed)
People walk inside the al-Hol camp in northeastern Syria's Hasakeh province, Syria, Wednesday, Jan. 21, 2026, after the withdrawal of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). (AP Photo/Ghaith Alsayed)
People stand inside the al-Hol camp in northeastern Syria's Hasakeh province, Syria, Wednesday, Jan. 21, 2026, after the withdrawal of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). (AP Photo/Ghaith Alsayed)
The bodies of retreating Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) fighters lie on the side of the road between government-controlled Raqqa and SDF-controlled Hassakeh,in northeastern Syria, Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2026. (AP Photo/Omar Albam)
Syrian government forces have taken control of one of the detention facilities where about 9,000 IS members are held in Syria. About 120 inmates fled from the Shaddadeh prison on Monday near the Iraqi border. Syrian authorities say that most of them have been recaptured.
During the battles that the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF, fought against IS over the past decade, thousands of fighters of different nationalities were captured and have been held in around a dozen prisons in northeast Syria.
The U.S.-backed Syrian forces also captured tens of thousands of mostly women and children linked to IS. Most of them have been held in the sprawling al-Hol camp near Iraq. A smaller group is held in the Roj camp, near where the frontiers of Syria, Turkey and Iraq converge.
Syrian troops are now in full control of al-Hol camp.
U.S. Central Command said in a statement that the transfer process began on Wednesday, and that 150 IS members have been taken from Syria to “secure locations” in Iraq so far. The statement said that up to 7,000 detainees could be transferred to Iraqi-controlled facilities.
The U.S. move came as Syrian government forces have captured wide areas that had been controlled by the SDF for years in an offensive that took everyone by surprise. Forces loyal to Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa are close to several detention centers and the Roj camp, after they took over al-Hol camp and Shaddeh prison.
There also have been tensions around al-Aqtan prison in Raqqa province, which is now encircled by government forces.
Apart from the Shaddadeh escape, no IS suspects have managed to flee from other facilities.
Syria’s government joined the U.S.-led international coalition fighting against IS in late 2025. The government recently has said that authorities are ready to take over and manage the camps and prisons, vowing that they are committed to fighting extremists.
When IS declared a caliphate in large parts of Syria and Iraq in 2014, they attracted extremists from around the world. From their caliphate, the extremists plotted attacks around the world that left hundreds dead from Europe to Asia to Arab countries.
The group also carried out brutalities in Syria and Iraq, including the enslavement of thousands of Yazidi women and girls who were taken when the militants overran northern Iraq in their 2014 campaign.
IS militant boasted of their exploits with videos they released at the time including beheading people or cutting of their hands over charges of theft. Women who were accused of adultery were stoned to death while gays were thrown from high-rises.
The possible escape of detainees raises concerns that they could join the group’s sleeper cells that still carry out deadly attacks.
There are several prisons in Syria where IS suspects are held and they are spread out over northern and northeastern Syria.
According to a U.S. State Department report, an estimated 9,000 IS fighters, including 1,600 Iraqis and 1,800 fighters from countries outside Syria and Iraq remained in detention facilities controlled by the SDF.
The largest detention facility is the Gweiran prison, now called Panorama, and has held about 4,500 IS-linked detainees for years. The prison is in Hassakeh, which is under the SDF’s full control.
Besides Shaddadeh prison, a facility that also witnessed tensions is the al-Aqtan prison near the northern city of Raqqa, which was once IS’ de facto capital.
Other detention facilities include the Cherkin prison in the northern city of Qamishli, and Derik prison near the border with Iraq and Turkey.
IS has vowed over the years that it will work to release the extremist group’s detainees from prisons, including women and children from al-Hol and Roj.
An Iraqi intelligence general told The Associated Press that Iraqi authorities have received the first batch of 144 detainees Wednesday night, after which they will be transferred in stages by aircraft.
The general, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to speak with the media, said that the IS members who will be transferred to Iraq are of different nationalities, including around 240 Tunisians and others from countries like Tajikistan and Kazakhstan.
“They will be interrogated and then put on trial. All of them are commanders in IS and are considered highly dangerous,” the general said.
He added that in previous years, 3,194 Iraqi detainees and 47 French citizens have been transferred to Iraq.
The general said that there is a challenge in securing adequate detention facilities for them in Iraq, but specific centers have been designated to hold the detainees in special secure units.
After the defeat of IS in Syria in March 2019, tens of thousands of women, many of them wives and widows of IS fighters, and children were taken by the SDF to the al-Hol camp.
There have been concerns over the years that the camp — which has witnessed crimes by IS sleeper cells against women who were distancing themselves from the group — is a breeding place for future fighters.
On Wednesday, Syrian troops were in full control of al-Hol camp and an AP journalist visited the facility. At its peak in 2019, around 73,000 people were living there, but the numbers have since dropped, with some countries repatriating their citizens.
Al-Hol currently has a population of about 24,000.
There are about 2,500 people at Roj camp, including Shamima Begum, who traveled from Britain as a teenager to join IS nearly 11 years ago.
An aerial view shows the al-Hol camp in northeastern Syria's Hasakeh province, Syria, Wednesday, Jan. 21, 2026, after the withdrawal of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). (AP Photo/Ghaith Alsayed)
People walk inside the al-Hol camp in northeastern Syria's Hasakeh province, Syria, Wednesday, Jan. 21, 2026, after the withdrawal of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). (AP Photo/Ghaith Alsayed)
People stand inside the al-Hol camp in northeastern Syria's Hasakeh province, Syria, Wednesday, Jan. 21, 2026, after the withdrawal of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). (AP Photo/Ghaith Alsayed)
The bodies of retreating Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) fighters lie on the side of the road between government-controlled Raqqa and SDF-controlled Hassakeh,in northeastern Syria, Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2026. (AP Photo/Omar Albam)
President Donald Trump marked his first year back in office highlighting his accomplishments before world leaders in Davos, Switzerland, on Wednesday and during an appearance in the White House press briefing room Tuesday, making false and misleading claims about the state of the U.S. economy, Greenland, foreign policy, energy and other topics.
For example, he repeated the falsehood that the 2020 election was rigged, despite overwhelming evidence proving otherwise and exaggerated his role in resolving international conflicts, claiming to have settled eight wars.
Here’s a closer look at the facts.
TRUMP, referencing World War II: “After the war, we gave Greenland back to Denmark. How stupid were we to do that?"
THE FACTS: Greenland never belonged to the U.S., so no Washington administration or Congress ever could have given it away.
Denmark made Greenland a formal colony in 1814. The U.S. recognized Denmark’s right to the whole of the island in 1916 as part of a bilateral agreement, maintained in State Department archives, that also involved the U.S. purchasing the Danish Virgin Islands for $25 million in gold.
Trump’s claim revolves around what happened during World War II. Nazi Germany began occupying Denmark in 1940. The U.S. and the Danish government-in-exile signed an agreement on April 9, 1941, according to State Department archives, for the U.S. to occupy Greenland “for as long as Greenland remains cut off from the mother country” to prevent it from becoming another base for the Third Reich’s military operations. But that agreement, which lasted until the war’s end in 1945, reiterated that “the sovereignty of Denmark over Greenland is fully recognized” and it also committed the two governments to future negotiations for “an adequate defense establishment in Greenland” and a U.S. lease for “the utilization of any area deemed by the Government of the United States of America to be needed for this purpose.”
After the war, Denmark was ready to cement a long-term deal for U.S. military presence in Greenland as called for in 1941. President Harry Truman offered to buy Greenland instead for $100 million in gold — another explicit U.S. acknowledgment that Denmark retained control of the island. Denmark refused, and the two governments negotiated a long-term lease agreement for U.S. operations, culminating in the 1951 Defense Agreement, which has been updated over succeeding decades.
Greenland became self-governing in 2009 under a home-rule agreement that has kept defense and foreign affairs under Denmark’s control.
TRUMP: “After 12 months back in the White House, our economy is booming. Growth is exploding. Productivity is surging. Investment is soaring. Incomes are rising.”
THE FACTS: One year into Trump’s second term in office, the economy is growing at a solid clip and unemployment remains low, but many other aspects fall short of a boom.
Hiring has slowed to a crawl. Inflation remains elevated: Consumer prices rose 2.7% in December from a year earlier, little changed from a 2.9% annual gain in December 2024. Incomes, adjusted for inflation, are still growing but in fact are growing more slowly now than in 2023 and 2024.
THE FACTS: Trump is wrong to say that the economy endured “stagflation’’ — a painful combination of stagnant economic growth and high inflation last seen in the 1970s — during the Biden administration.
It’s true that inflation surged in the first half of Biden’s term. But the economy proved resilient, defying predictions of a recession as the Federal Reserve raised interest rates to rein in higher prices. Gross domestic product — the nation’s output of goods and services — expanded at healthy rates throughout the Biden presidency: 6.2% in 2021 as the economy recovered from COVID-19 lockdowns, 2.5% in 2022, 2.9% in 2023 and 2.8% in 2024.
In addition, Inflation had been falling during the first few months of Trump’s presidency, but it picked back up after the president announced his tariffs in April. It was at 2.7% as of December 2025.
TRUMP: “Other presidents have spent, whether foolishly or not, trillions and trillions of dollars on NATO and gotten absolutely nothing in return. We’ve never asked for anything. It’s always a one-way street.”
THE FACTS: The primary purpose of NATO, as spelled out in Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, is for the common defense of member nations.
“In the history of NATO, Article 5 has been invoked just once, and that was in response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the United States," according to the “Why NATO Matters” section of the U.S. Mission to NATO's website.
The treaty, signed in 1949, states that “an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all” and that member nations will “assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force” in response to the aggressor.
The North Atlantic Council, NATO’s governing body, met that night and issued a statement of commitment to the U.S. cause: “At this critical moment, the United States can rely on its 18 Allies in North America and Europe for assistance and support. NATO solidarity remains the essence of our Alliance. Our message to the people of the United States is that we are with you. Our message to those who perpetrated these unspeakable crimes is equally clear: you will not get away with it.”
The Council voted a day later to commit to whatever specific military actions “may be required as a consequence of these acts of barbarism.” NATO quickly launched multiple responses, including its first counter-terrorism efforts and its first operations beyond the North Atlantic zone of the original alliance.
Additionally, NATO members, including Denmark, deployed military service members, including ground troops, for U.S. operations in Afghanistan and elsewhere. Forty-four Danish soldiers were killed in Afghanistan, the highest per capita death toll among coalition forces. Eight more died in Iraq.
TRUMP: “You have to understand, I settled eight wars.”
THE FACTS: This statistic, which Trump frequently cites as one of his accomplishments, is highly exaggerated. Although he has helped mediate relations among many nations, his impact isn’t as clear-cut as he makes it seem.
The conflicts Trump counts among those that he has solved are between Israel and Hamas, Israel and Iran, Egypt and Ethiopia, India and Pakistan, Serbia and Kosovo, Rwanda and Congo, Armenia and Azerbaijan, and Cambodia and Thailand.
There is far more work that remains before any declaration of an end to the war in Gaza and although Trump is credited with ending the 12-day war between Israel and Iran, this can be seen as a temporary respite from an ongoing cold war. Fresh fighting broke out last month between Cambodia and Thailand, and between Congolese forces and Rwanda-backed rebels.
The leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan signed a deal aimed at ending a decades-long conflict at the White House in August. But the leaders have yet to sign a peace treaty and parliaments have yet to ratify it. After the April killing of tourists in Indian-controlled Kashmir pushed India and Pakistan closer to war than they had been in years, a ceasefire was reached. Trump claimed that the U.S. brokered the ceasefire and Pakistan thanked him, while India denied his claims.
Friction between Egypt and Ethiopia over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam is best described as heightened tensions, not war. There has been no threat of war between Serbia and Kosovo during Trump’s second term, nor has he made any significant contribution to improving relations in his first year back in the White House.
TRUMP: “There are windmills all over Europe. There are windmills all over the place and they are losers. One thing I’ve noticed is that the more windmills a country has, the more money that country loses and the worse that country’s doing.”
THE FACTS: Onshore wind is one of the cheapest sources of electricity generation, with new wind farms expected to produce around $30 per megawatt hour, according to July estimates from the Energy Information Administration. This compares to a new natural gas plant, around $65 per megawatt hour, or a new advanced nuclear reactor, which runs over $80. Offshore wind is among the sources of new power generation that will cost the most to build and operate, at $88 per megawatt hour, the EIA said in July.
The U.K. has gone big on wind in 2026, securing 8.4 gigawatts of offshore wind energy in a European auction this month — the biggest single procurement in British and European history and enough clean electricity to power the equivalent of over 12 million homes. This has made the cost of offshore wind 40% cheaper to build and operate than new gas, according to the U.K. government.
TRUMP, speaking Tuesday: “I say clean, beautiful coal. I never say the word coal, it has to be preceded by the words clean, beautiful coal.”
THE FACTS: The production of coal is cleaner now than it has been historically, but that doesn’t mean it’s clean.
Trump, however, continually omits this crucial context.
Planet-warming carbon dioxide emissions from the coal industry have decreased over the past 30 years, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. And yet United Nations-backed research has found that coal production worldwide still needs to be reduced sharply to address climate change.
Along with carbon dioxide, burning coal emits sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides that contribute to acid rain, smog and respiratory illnesses, according to the EIA.
Coal once provided more than half of U.S. energy production. Today, coal accounts for about 15% of U.S. electricity production.
TRUMP, on the 2024 election: “When I won in a landslide, a giant landslide, won all seven swing states, won the popular vote, won everything.”
THE FACTS: Trump's margin of victory in the 2024 election was not as large as he makes it seem. He won the electoral vote 312 to 226, including all seven swing states, according to the Federal Election Commission. The popular vote, however, was far closer, with Trump receiving 49.8% of the vote with 77,302,580 votes cast to Harris’ 75,017,613 votes (48.32%)
That's a difference of 2,284,967 votes. In 2020, Joe Biden defeated Trump by more than 7 million votes.
Trump won fewer electoral votes in 2024 than Democrats Barack Obama in 2008 (365) and 2012 (332) and Bill Clinton in 1992 (370) and 1996 (379). The electoral performance of those presidents pales in comparison with the sweeps by Franklin Roosevelt in 1936 (523), Lyndon Johnson in 1964 (486), Richard Nixon in 1972 (520) and Ronald Reagan in 1984 (525).
TRUMP, referencing former President Joe Biden: “... a man that didn’t win the election, by the way, it’s a rigged election. Everybody knows that now.
THE FACTS: This is a blatant falsehood that has been disproven many times over — the 2020 election was not stolen. Biden earned 306 electoral votes to Trump’s 232. He also won over 7 million more popular votes than Trump.
But Trump has been persistent in claiming that he won the 2020 race since its completion, even after he earned a second term in 2024, and has continued to claim the lead-up to the 2026 midterms.
Biden’s Electoral College victory was nearly the same margin that Trump had in 2016 when he beat Hillary Clinton 227 to 306 (304 after two electors defected). Biden triumphed by prevailing in key states such as Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona and Georgia.
Allegations from Trump of massive voting fraud have been refuted by a variety of judges, state election officials and an arm of his own administration’s Homeland Security Department. In 2020, then-Attorney General William Barr, a Trump appointee, told the AP that no proof of widespread voter fraud had been uncovered. “To date, we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have effected a different outcome in the election,” he said at the time.
Associated Press writers Matthew Daly and Paul Wiseman in Washington, Bill Barrow in Atlanta, Danica Kirka in London, and Jennifer McDermott in Providence, Rhode Island, contributed to this report.
The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.
Find AP Fact Checks here: https://apnews.com/APFactCheck.
Documents lie on the briefing room floor as President Donald Trump speaks with reporters in the James Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House, Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
President Donald Trump speaks during a press briefing at the White House in Washington, Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2026. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
President Donald Trump calls on reporter to ask a question during a press briefing at the White House in Washington, Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2026. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
