Syria Prisons full of IS suspects under threat as militant group remobilises

With each gust of wind came a wave of body odour, the stench of two dozen men wafting through the hatch of the prison cell's iron door.

- William Christou and Michael Safi

Inside, gaunt prisoners clad in brown jumpsuits sat on thin gray mattresses.

Six years have passed since the end of the so-called caliphate of the Islamic State, but to the 4,500 men held inside Panorama prison in north-east Syria, little has changed since their initial capture.

"There's a war going on, right?" Muhammad Saqib Raza, a 45-year-old British-Pakistani doctor accused of being an IS fighter, asked when Guardian reporters visited the desert facility this month. He said he knew nothing of what was going on in the outside world, though he had learned from a visiting human rights worker that Donald Trump was now the US president.

Detainees had no idea Bashar al-Assad no longer ruled Syria - a fact the prison administration asked reporters not to share, for fear it would stir trouble.

Guns, mobile phones and information were considered contraband within the four buildings that housed the mostly non-Syrian men accused of fighting for IS. Guards carried clubs and wore balaclavas to conceal their identities, fearful their families could face retribution in the event of a prison break.

Outside the heavily fortified prison walls, the world has seemingly tried to forget that thousands of suspected IS fighters are languishing in detention. But experts warn IS has not forgotten.

The presence of US troops in Syria, which joined Kurdish-led forces to defeat IS in 2014, is in question. Governments such as the UK, Australia and France have mostly ignored the problem, stripping alleged fighters of citizenship and declining to repatriate their nationals.

After the fall of the Assad regime on 8 December, however, the world may no longer be able to ignore the remnants of IS.