A prison battle in Syria was a disaster long foretold

PRISON BREAKSISISIS have played a central role in the mythology of Islamic State (). In 2007 the jihadist group’s predecessor claimed responsibility for a jailbreak at Badush prison, in northern Iraq, that freed 140 detainees. Five years later it launched a campaign called “Breaking the Walls”, a series of attacks on Iraqi prisons. The climax, in July 2013, was a simultaneous raid on jails in Taji and Abu Ghraib that freed more than 500 people, mostly Iraqi insurgents. Soon would seize a large stretch of Iraqi territory and proclaim its caliphate.In some ways the battle this month at Ghweiran prison, in north-eastern Syria, harked back to earlier times. The jail houses around 5,000 people, many of them Syrians and Iraqis accused of links to . On January 20th the group attacked and seized it in a well-planned assault.