Hasakah

Overview

Hasakah is a city in northeastern Syria and the capital of Hasakah Governorate. The city and the governorate share a name but refer to different areas: the governorate extends well beyond the city and includes Qamishli, Tall Tamr, al-Shaddadi and the al-Hol camp. Hasakah lies in an oil-rich part of the country where control of land, armed forces and detention facilities has shaped the Syrian civil war. Its position also made it an important base for operations against the Islamic State.

During much of the civil war, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) held sway in the Hasakah area, with United States forces based nearby supporting operations against the Islamic State. The governorate’s importance extended beyond that campaign. Its oil fields drew the interest of the Iranian regime, while Turkish attacks damaged civilian infrastructure. Hasakah city became a major center for holding captured Islamic State fighters, bringing security risks and humanitarian demands into the lives of its residents.

Geography

Hasakah stands in northeastern Syria, within the part of Kurdistan that lies across Syria’s borders with Turkey and Iraq. References to events in Hasakah Governorate do not necessarily mean they occurred in the city. Qamishli is another city in the governorate; Tall Tamr lies northwest of Hasakah city, while al-Shaddadi and oil-producing areas lie farther south. Al-Hol camp is also in the governorate. These distances matter when describing fighting, detention and damage to water supplies: each affected the wider province, though some events unfolded inside Hasakah’s neighborhoods.

The governorate’s oil fields have given it strategic value to rival armed and political forces. The Iranian regime sought access to those fields to ease sanctions pressure on Bashar al-Assad’s government, which bought oil from SDF-controlled areas. The presence of U.S. forces and their SDF partners made control of the governorate part of a wider contest over northeastern Syria. Water infrastructure has been equally consequential for civilians. Damage to the Aluk Water Station during Turkish attacks in late 2019 cut water access for approximately 400,000 people in Hasakah Province.

Modern history

In 1962, Syrian authorities carried out an unannounced, single-day census in Hasakah Governorate. Approximately 150,000 Kurds lost Syrian citizenship. Residents whose registration or paperwork was incomplete were classified as foreigners; those who refused to take part were classified as undocumented. The decision affected descendants as well as those counted at the time. People deprived of citizenship lacked identity cards and access to government health care and education. Stateless Kurds also could not inherit or bequeath assets, and missing citizenship and identity documents restricted travel.

Discrimination continued under Hafez al-Assad. In 1970, he blocked distribution of land in Hasakah Governorate to prevent the formation of a small Kurdish landowning class. Land policy and the earlier census limited Kurds’ rights in a governorate where they formed a substantial part of the population. In 2011, Bashar al-Assad issued a decree allowing stateless Kurds in Hasakah who had been registered as foreigners to apply for citizenship. The measure excluded approximately 160,000 unregistered stateless Kurds. By the 2019 reporting period, approximately 40,000 people covered by the decree still had been unable to obtain citizenship.

As Syrian government authority weakened during the civil war, fighters associated with the Democratic Union Party (PYD) took control of Kurdish districts in Hasakah Governorate after the Erbil Agreement. The PYD also took neighborhoods in Hasakah city from the Syrian Army, gaining ground within a provincial capital. Control remained divided and subject to further fighting. In southern Hasakah Governorate, the PYD captured al-Shaddadi, gaining access to nearby oil wells and cutting an Islamic State route between Mosul and Raqqa. By 2016, the SDF were headquartered in Hasakah.

The governorate has long been home to varied communities, including Kurds, Arabs and Christians. Syria’s Christian population remained concentrated in several western cities and Hasakah Governorate during the conflict. Violence reached Christian residents and clergy: on November 11, 2019, Islamic State members killed two Armenian Catholic priests and wounded a deacon as they traveled from Hasakah to Deir ez-Zor to oversee church renovation.

Security

Hasakah was a significant front in the campaign against the Islamic State. In May 2015, Kurdish forces held territory they had taken in the governorate and were expanding into other areas, while Islamic State fighters sought to contain those gains. Fighting around Tall Tamr, northwest of Hasakah city, involved Islamic State fighters and Kurdish forces associated with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party. On May 1, the Islamic State published images of its fighters firing near Tall Tamr and capturing a Kurdish fighter. Coalition airstrikes in Hasakah province that year damaged the group’s tactical units, battle positions and vehicles. U.S. forces continued to support the SDF against the group from bases in the area.

Detention became a central security issue after the Islamic State lost territory. In 2023, the SDF oversaw more than 20 detention centers across northeastern Syria holding approximately 9,000 Islamic State fighters captured during coalition operations. The Provincial Internal Security Forces detention center in Hasakah was the largest and held most of the Islamic State detainees in Syria. Conditions across the network were inadequate: detainees lacked sufficient food and water, while medical care and supplies were limited. Holding so many fighters in and around population centers placed heavy demands on security forces and exposed nearby civilians to the consequences of any breach.

That danger became immediate on January 20, 2022, when an explosion at the gates of Ghweiran prison in Hasakah’s southern Ghweiran neighborhood began a major Islamic State assault. Fighters attacked outside the prison as prisoners inside rioted. Shelling, warplanes and clashes continued overnight. Residents feared escaped prisoners, packed belongings and faced the prospect of displacement in winter conditions. Fighting also reached surrounding neighborhoods. Although the SDF announced that it had regained the facility, Islamic State fighters still held part of the prison afterward. Eight days into the battle, residents of Hasakah’s southern neighborhoods remained under siege, with shortages of food, medicine and other basic necessities.

The detention problem extended beyond prisons. In 2019, al-Hol camp in Hasakah Governorate held about 70,000 displaced people, mostly families of detained Islamic State fighters. Its size made shelter, care and security major humanitarian concerns. On January 31, 2023, the SDF transferred at least 10 foreign, non-Iraqi boys from al-Hol to the Orkesh child rehabilitation center in Hasakah without giving their families a reason. The movement of children between the camp and city showed how detention policy reached families as well as captured fighters.

The Islamic State remained active south of Qamishli in 2023, when Hasakah Province was a major site of its attacks. Fighting over detention sites again became urgent in January 2026. On January 19, the SDF lost control of Al-Shaddadi Prison, which held Islamic State detainees, amid clashes with Syrian government forces. A January 20 ceasefire left the future of Qamishli and Hasakah Governorate for later negotiations. On January 21, United States Central Command announced the transfer of 150 Islamic State detainees from Hasakah to a secure location in Iraq. These developments underscored the risk that shifts in territorial control could disrupt custody of Islamic State prisoners.

Present day

Hasakah’s strategic value has also drawn the Iranian regime into local power struggles. The regime cultivated tribal militias in Hasakah Governorate and prepared them to enter SDF-held territory if U.S. forces withdrew. Sheikh Mohammad al-Fares of the Tay tribe established the al-Magawir militia there as part of the Assad government’s National Defence Forces. Iranian and Hezbollah forces helped found and train it. Al-Magawir served as a counterweight to the PYD in Hasakah and Qamishli. The regime’s interest in the governorate’s oil fields linked this militia strategy to its economic aims.

Turkey’s military operations have repeatedly affected Hasakah residents. Turkish shelling and bombardment damaged the Aluk Water Station twice in late 2019, interrupting water access for approximately 400,000 people in the province. From December 23 to 27, 2023, Turkish airstrikes concentrated around Hasakah, Kobani and Qamishli killed 10 civilians and damaged hospitals and factories. Turkey’s defense minister said the strikes followed Kurdistan Workers’ Party attacks on Turkish military outposts in Iraq that killed 12 Turkish service members. SDF commander Mazloum Abdi identified Jazira, in Hasakah province, and Kobani as possible targets of further Turkish attacks.

Local tensions added to the pressure on the SDF. In August 2025, members of the Al Naim, Al Bushaaban, Qais Aylan and Al Baqara tribes called for general mobilization against it in Deir ez-Zor, Raqqa and Hasakah. Civilian needs persisted alongside these security disputes. A cholera outbreak that began in Deir ez-Zor in early September spread to Hasakah and Raqqa, illustrating the consequences of unsafe water in a region already strained by war and displacement. Hasakah’s future therefore turns on more than prison security: governance, oil, water, the status of Kurdish residents and the presence of rival armed forces all affect the city and its surrounding governorate.