<div><span style="font-size: 1rem;">Six members of Kurdish-led security forces and two jihadists were killed Monday in a failed Islamic State group assault near a prison for extremists in northern Syria, a war monitor said.</span><br></div><div><br></div><div>The failed assault targeted a Kurdish security complex in Raqa, the group's former de facto capital in Syria, which includes a military intelligence prison housing jihadists, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.</div><div><br></div><div>"The jihadists were targeting the military intelligence prison" housing hundreds of jihadists, including 200 high-level militants, said Rami Abdel Rahman, who heads the Britain-based monitor.</div><div><br></div><div>Kurdish-led authorities announced a state of emergency in Raqa and have put the city on lockdown as security forces hunt down jihadists at large.</div><div><br></div><div>IS claimed responsibility for the attack, saying two of its fighters had launched it, one of whom had escaped.</div><div><br></div><div>The group said the attack came to avenge "Muslim prisoners" and female relatives of jihadists living in the Kurdish-administered Al-Hol camp.</div><div><br></div><div>Al-Hol, home to more than 50,000 people, is the largest camp for displaced people who fled after the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) led the battle that dislodged IS group fighters from the last scraps of their Syrian territory in 2019.</div><div><br></div><div>The spokesperson of the SDF, which controls Raqa and Al-Hol, confirmed the death of six security forces to AFP.</div><div><br></div><div>The assault was near a prison with IS inmates, he said, but "IS failed to attack the prison because our forces thwarted their attack", Farhad Shami said.</div><div><br></div><div>Security forces are still searching the area to arrest members of the cell, he added.</div><div><br></div><div>This is the most significant jihadist attack on a prison since IS fighters launched their biggest assault in years in January, when they attacked the Ghwayran prison in the Kurdish-controlled city of Hasakeh.</div><div><br></div><div>Hundreds were killed in the assault that lasted for a week and aimed to free fellow jihadists.</div><div><br></div><div>Syria's war, which broke out in 2011, has killed close to half a million people and spurred the largest conflict-induced displacement since World War II. Soruce: AFP&nbsp;</div><div><br></div><div>bnbd24/fas</div>