SANA: US forces transfer ISIS detainees to Iraq

SANA: US forces transfer ISIS detainees to Iraq



2019/10/20 08:09:51
 
US forces are moving women from the wives of ISIS operatives from inside the Houl camp east of the city of al-Hasakah, the Syrian news agency SANA reported on Sunday.

The official correspondent of the agency in the city that the transfer coincides with "intensive overflights of the occupation helicopters in the atmosphere of the camp," which was established by the "Syrian Democratic Forces" during battles against ISIS militants in the region, which includes tens of thousands of displaced people.

In a related context, the agency reported, according to local sources, that US forces "transferred 230 foreign terrorists" from the "ISIS" who were detained in a prison in the town of Malikiyah to Shadadi in the southern countryside of Hasaka, while transporting, on a military helicopter, 5 of ISIS detention centers from Adnaniya village in Malikiyah countryside to Iraq.

"Iraq is concerned with the handing over of ISIS terrorists who hold Iraqi citizenship and their families, and will be tried in Iraqi courts in accordance with the laws in force, and not concerned with foreign terrorists who have carried out terrorist operations outside Iraq, and their countries must take care of them," said State Department spokesman Ahmed al-Sahaf.

European countries are trying to speed up a plan to remove thousands of foreign ISIS militants from camps held in Syria and transfer them to Iraq after fresh fighting involved the risk of escaping or returning home.

The Europeans represent five ISIS fighters in Syria, about 10,000 held by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which is under heavy attack from Turkish troops.

If SDF guards send places of detention to the front lines, there is a risk that detainees will flee.

Before the Turkish offensive began, European countries were assessing how to find a mechanism that could lead to the transfer of foreign fighters from Syria to Iraq for prosecution there on war crimes charges.

European countries do not want to prosecute their nationals on their territory for fear of provoking public outrage, their judicial systems struggling to gather evidence and the risk of renewed militant attacks there.

Iraq has seen some of the bloodiest fighting against IS and is already trying thousands of suspected ISIS members there after Iraqi forces arrested many people during the fall of IS strongholds across the country.

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