AL-HOL – The U.S. military said Wednesday it has started transferring detainees from the Islamic State group being held in northeastern Syria to secure facilities in Iraq.
The move came after Syrian government forces took control of a sprawling camp, housing thousands of mostly women and children, from the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF, which withdrew as part of a ceasefire. Troops on Monday seized a prison in the northeastern town of Shaddadeh, where some IS detainees escaped and many were recaptured, state media reported.
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The Kurdish-led SDF still controls more than a dozen detention facilities holding around 9,000 IS members, but is slated to hand the prisons over to government control under a peace process that also is supposed to eventually merge the SDF with government forces.
U.S. Central Command said the first transfer involved 150 IS members, who were taken from Syria’s northeastern province of Hassakeh to “secure locations” in Iraq. The statement said that up to to 7,000 detainees could be transferred to Iraqi-controlled facilities.
“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,” said Adm. Brad Cooper, CENTCOM commander. He said the transfer was in coordination with regional partners, including Iraq.
U.S. troops and their partner forces detained more than 300 IS operatives in Syria and killed over 20 last year, the U.S. military said. An ambush last month by IS militants killed two U.S. soldiers and one American civilian interpreter in Syria.
A US official who spoke on condition of anonymity in order to speak candidly about a sensitive situation said that the move to transfer the prisoners was driven by concerns about whether the Syrian government could effectively guard the prisoners as the SDF departs.
An Iraqi intelligence general told The Associated Press that an agreement was reached with the U.S. to transfer 7,000 detainees from Syria to Iraq. He said that Iraqi authorities received the first batch of 144 detainees Wednesday night, after which they will be transferred in stages by aircraft to Iraqi prisons.
The general, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media, said the IS members who will be transferred to Iraq are of various nationalities. He said they include around 240 Tunisians, in addition to others from countries including Tajikistan and Kazakhstan and some Syrians.
"They will be interrogated and then put on trial. All of them are commanders in ISIS and are considered highly dangerous,” the general said. He added that in previous years, 3,194 Iraqi detainees and 47 French citizens have been transferred to Iraq.
Regional threat despite battle setbacks
The IS group was defeated in Iraq in 2017, and in Syria two years later, but the group’s sleeper cells still carry out deadly attacks in both countries. The SDF played a major role in defeating the IS.
Tom Barrack, the U.S. envoy to Syria, said in a statement on Tuesday that the SDF’s role as the primary anti-IS force “has largely expired, as Damascus is now both willing and positioned to take over security responsibilities.”
He added that the “recent developments show the U.S. actively facilitating this transition, rather than prolonging a separate SDF role.”
Syria's Foreign Ministry welcomed the transfer of detainees, calling it “an important step to strengthen security and stability.”
Earlier on Wednesday, a convoy of armored vehicles with government forces moved into the al-Hol camp following two weeks of clashes with the SDF, which appeared closer to merging into the Syrian military, in accordance with government demands.
At its peak in 2019, some 73,000 people were living at al-Hol. Their number has since declined with some countries repatriating their citizens.
The camp is still home to some 24,000, most of them women and children. They include about 14,500 Syrians and nearly 3,000 Iraqis. Some 6,500 others, many of them loyal IS supporters who came from around the world to join the extremist group, are separately held in a highly secured section of the camp.
Families plead to return home
An AP journalist visited the camp on Wednesday as scores of soldiers guarded the main entrance.
“Go inside and see the chaos that is happening. There are no clinics, no running water, no bread and no vegetables,” an Iraqi woman living in the camp said, after SDF fighters left the area. The woman, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of security concerns, called on the Iraqi government to repatriate her.
Another Iraqi woman, who also refused to give her full name out of fear of reprisal, said her brother and uncle were being held in jails in northeast Syria and called on authorities to release them so that they can all return home.
The Syrian government and the SDF announced a new four-day truce late Tuesday after a previous ceasefire broke down.
A drone attack on Wednesday killed seven soldiers and wounded 20 while they were inspecting a weapons depot abandoned by SDF fighters in the northeastern town of Yaaroubiyeh, the Defense Ministry said, blaming the Kurdish forces. The SDF said the blast was triggered by soldiers moving the ammunition.
'Direct confrontation'
The SDF and the government traded blame over the escape Monday of IS members from the Shaddedeh prison on the border with Iraq. Under a deal announced Sunday, government forces were to take over the control of the prisons but the transfer did not go smoothly.
The largest detention facility, Gweiran Prison, now called Panorama, has held about 4,500 IS-linked detainees and was still in SDF hands.
Defense Ministry spokesman Brig. Gen. Hassan Abdul-Ghani said in televised comments Tuesday that the government “was and still is in direct confrontation” with the IS. He added that authorities are ready to take over prisons with IS members.
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Mroue reported from Beirut and Abdul-Zahra from Baghdad. Associated Press writer Konstantin Toropin in Washington contributed.