Return of ISIS fighters puts allies at odds

Allies are at odds over how to prosecute and detain about 2000 foreign Islamic State fighters held in Syria.

Couple Hanan and Mohammad on their wedding day in a centre for displaced people in the northern Syrian city of Hasakah. Picture: AFP

Washington and its European ­allies are at odds over how to prosecute and detain about 2000 foreign Islamic State fighters being held in Syria, eight months after US-backed forces seized the last sliver of the group’s self-described caliphate there.

The problem became urgent in October when Turkish forces intervened in northern Syria, spurring fears that the fighters might escape detention in the confusion. Fewer than 200 prisoners have fled, according to the US military, and the fears abated after a US-­arranged ceasefire took effect.

But US officials say a lasting ­solution is needed in case the ­region’s tenuous stability collapses.

“My experience is even small cells of these people are quite dangerous,” said John Allen, a ­retired marine general who served as the US special envoy to the international coalition fighting ­Islamic State. “Every day we wait on this, we’re one day closer to their release or getting loose.”

The US has urged European nations to repatriate and put on trial foreign fighters who left their countries to join Islamic State, ­arguing that the swiftest way to deal with the problem is to rely on countries with established legal systems.

“Countries have an obligation to take back their citizens and prosecute them for the crimes they committed,” said Nathan Sales, a top US State Department official for counter-terrorism.

But France and other Euro­pean nations have proposed that foreign fighters in Iraq and Syria be prosecuted in Iraq under an ­arrangement in which the UN would oversee the evidence, capital punishment would be ruled out and the international community would help defray the cost.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, who visited Iraq in October to discuss the proposal, recently said the fighters “should be tried as close as possible to the crimes they committed”.

Mourners at the funeral of a Christian fighter who fought alongside the Syrian Defence Forces at Hasakah. Picture: AFP

The Iraqi government, which is entering a period of political instability after prime minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi resigned, and is still fighting a guerrilla war against ISIS remnants, has been deeply sceptical of the French idea.

“Our position is that we will take all Iraqi nationals, after making sure of their Iraqi origin, whether they are ISIS fighters or unarmed family members,” a senior Iraqi official said. “On the foreign fighters, we would like to see their countries of origin take them. We will have our hands full with our own nationals.”

The crush of prisoners is a ­result of the battlefield gains by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces in northeast Syria, and the US insistence that Islamic State fighters be held in accordance with the laws of war.

More than 10,000 ISIS fighters are being held in detention centres in northeast Syria that are guarded by the SDF, according to the Pentagon. About 8000 of those are Iraqi and Syrian and the ­remainder come from more than 60 countries, including Australia.

There are 20,000 Islamic State fighters detained in Iraq, including 1000 from 50 different countries, the Dutch government says.

A State Department official said that a very small number of US citizens were in the detention centres and camps for dependants in northeast Syria, but declined to comment further. The US has ­already begun to accept American relatives of fighters and has taken back some Americans suspected of fighting for Islamic State, who have been turned over by Kurdish allies and Turkey, and are expected to stand trial.

Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, before he was killed in a US raid in October, called on his followers to storm the SDF camps in Syria to free the fighters.

A recent report by the Pentagon Inspector General warned ISIS militants, strengthened by the chaos caused by Turkey’s ­intervention and the drawdown of US troops in northern Syria, may have an eye on the prisons.

“The longer the ISIS fighters remain in detention, the greater the potential for prison breaks and radicalisation,” the report said.

Captured fighters are only part of the problem. About 70,000 displaced civilians, including 50,000 people under the age of 18, are being held at the al-Hawl camp in Syria’s Hasakah province, many of them wives and children of foreign fighters. About 11,000 are women and children from countries other than Syria and Iraq.

France has long sought to prevent French nationals who joined ISIS from being ­returned home for trial. It reflects fears that convicted terrorists might receive relatively lenient sentences for want of ­legally ­admissible evidence linking them to crimes on the battlefield. That position has been supported by the French public after the 2015 Paris terrorist ­attacks perpetrated by Islamic State militants that killed 130. So determined was France to reduce the risk of repatriation that French special forces enlisted Iraqi soldiers to hunt down French nationals who had joined ISIS.

Despite the diplomatic gridlock, there have been modest signs that European nations may take back some foreign dependants, if not the fighters themselves. A German court ruled in July that it had to ­repatriate the German wife and children of an Islamic State fighter. Britain is moving to take back three orphans who have been cared for by Kurdish fighters in Syria.

Forcing the issue, Turkish authorities have started sending back families of ISIS members, including seven German citizens and a former Irish Air Corps member, according to the former European counter-terrorism official.

A UN panel warned Western nations in July that time was running out to find a solution and that foreign fighters in detention may become more radicalised over time. “Some may join al-Qa’ida or other terrorist brands that may emerge,” the report said. “Dependants … may come to pose a threat if they are not dealt with appropriately.”

The Wall Street Journal