Islamic State (ISIS) detainees held in Kurdish-led northern Syria must be repatriated, the United States (US) Department of State said on Sunday, adding that a key priority for the US-led Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS, in partnership with the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), is resolution of both the security challenges and the humanitarian crisis in the region.
Denmark repatriated a woman and two children from a camp in northeastern Syria last week. In Sunday’s statement the US commended Denmark and stressed that it stands ready to assist other nations in repatriation efforts.
“We are also grateful to our local partners, the Syrian Democratic Forces, for their leadership in addressing this complicated situation,” the US added.
Repatriation of the 10,000 foreign ISIS family members detained in the region is the only long-term solution, the US reiterated, noting that the families are citizens of over 60 countries and are mostly children under the age of 12.
In addition to the camps that hold ISIS affiliates, the SDF also maintain security of facilities across the region that hold 10,000 ISIS fighters in detention.
“This constitutes the single largest concentration of detained terrorist fighters in the world and remains a threat to regional and international security,” the US concluded.
The Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES) have made many attempts to call on western countries to repatriate citizens and put them on trial. However, the few trails that did take place, years after the territorial defeat of the jihadist group, involved cases against former fighters who had already returned to their country of citizenship.
The AANES recently announced a decision to put foreign ISIS fighters in the northern Syrian camps on trial in the local People’s Courts, which previously had only prosecuted local citizens.
