US military starts moving Islamic State prisoners from Syria to Iraq
The US military said on Wednesday it has begun transferring Islamic State group (IS) prisoners held in northeastern Syria to Iraq, as the Syrian army continues to take control of areas previously administered by Kurdish forces.
US Central Command said it transferred about 150 IS detainees from a facility in Hasakah province to secure locations in Iraq.
“Ultimately, up to 7,000 ISIS detainees could be transferred from Syria to Iraqi controlled facilities,” it said, using another acronym for IS.
The move comes as the Syrian army has taken control of the al-Hol camp, which holds around 24,000 people, mostly women and children linked to IS, including about 14,500 Syrians and nearly 3,000 Iraqis.
Syrian government forces also took control of the al-Shaddadi prison earlier this week.
The Syrian military swept into areas of northeastern Syria in recent days amid clashes with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
The US-backed armed group was a chief bulwark against IS in Syria and over the 2011-2024 Syrian war established an autonomous Kurdish-run enclave.
However, the SDF and Kurdish authorities have been under intense pressure to merge with the central Damascus government.
Though a deal has often seemed close, talks and ceasefires repeatedly broke down in recent days, prompting the Syrian army to take more territory previously held by the SDF.
Prisoners could face torture, execution
Legal action NGO Reprieve warned on Thursday that the prisoners’ transfer from northeast Syria to Iraq is an “extremely worrying development”.
“Summary trials and executions of prisoners in Iraq have been extensively documented. Anyone transferred to Iraqi detention facilities faces a very real risk of being tortured into making a forced confession and executed,” Reprieve CEO Maya Foa said.
There are around 55-60 British nationals in the detention camps and prisons, the majority of them children, according to the organisation.
“If British nationals are being forcibly rendered to Iraq with the knowledge or acquiescence of the UK, this risks complicity in grave human rights violations, including torture and unlawful executions,” Foa said.
Human Rights Watch has previously criticised Iraq for sentencing hundreds of people suspected of having IS links to death after “rushed and deeply flawed” trials based on confessions, including those obtained after torture.
Ahead of the transfers on Wednesday, Amnesty International encouraged the Syrian and SDF authorities to “secure and preserve” evidence of crimes committed by the IS to carry out a “human-rights-compliant screening process” in detention facilities.
“National proceedings should meet international fair trial standards and be without recourse to the death penalty,” Amnesty International’s Kristine Beckerle said.
“Evidence of crimes left behind will be essential to establish the fate and whereabouts of the Syrians who have been disappeared by IS, as well as investigating and prosecuting the perpetrators of crimes under international law, including war crimes and crimes against humanity.”
US support for SDF ‘expired’
On Tuesday, US envoy Tom Barrack said that the security partnership between the US and the SDF has “largely expired“, adding that Washington’s main partner against IS would now be the Syrian government.
Earlier this week, the Syrian government accused the SDF of deliberately releasing IS members held at al-Shaddadi prison in an act of “political blackmail“. The SDF denied the claim.
Syria’s interior ministry said 81 of around 120 detainees who escaped were later recaptured.
“Facilitating the orderly and secure transfer of ISIS detainees is critical to preventing a breakout that would pose a direct threat to the United States and regional security,” the US military said.
An Iraqi intelligence official told the Associated Press that the IS members being transferred to Iraq are of various nationalities, including around 240 Tunisians, as well as others from countries such as Tajikistan and Kazakhstan.
The SDF played a major role in the territorial defeat of IS in 2019 and later managed thousands of detainees.
A renewed ceasefire reached with Damascus on Tuesday gave the SDF four days to conduct internal consultations and develop a practical mechanism for integration with government forces.
Under the ceasefire, the SDF is also expected to hand over prisons and detention camps holding IS members and their relatives, as well as other key infrastructure, including oil fields.
According to a US State Department report, an estimated 9,000 people accused of joining IS, including 1,600 Iraqis and 1,800 nationals from countries outside Syria and Iraq, remain in detention facilities controlled by the SDF.
