Maybe it’s a failure of our institutional memory – or it’s just plain simpler to go along with the simplest story – but Idlib has for three years been the dumping ground of all Syria’s Islamist enemies, or at least the antagonists who didn’t surrender when they fled the big cities under Syrian and Russian bombardment. There are Russian troop outposts inside these Islamist front lines, along with Turkish military forces but the tentative ceasefire which held for five months has become a lot more tenuous in the past few weeks. But because there are plenty of Isis fighters still under arms and ready to fight in the Syrian province of Idlib, along with their Hayat Tahrir al Sham, al-Nusra and al-Qaeda comrades – almost surrounded by Syrian government troops but with a narrow corridor in which they could escape to Turkey always supposing that Sultan Erdogan will let them. Not just because the fighting around Baghouz is, in fact, still continuing outside the wrecked town. Because you can make a safe bet that it’s not true. But whenever I read that victory has been declared – whether it be of the Bush “mission accomplished” variety or the “last Isis stronghold about to fall” fantasy – I draw in my breath. They are "being groomed as future ISIL operatives", the UN said, using a different acronym for the ISIS group.After all the headlines about the supposed defeat of Isis, anyone who doesn’t believe a word of it may seem a bit of a spoilsport. It also warned of the fate of around 7,000 children living in a special annex designated for foreign ISIS relatives. In a report published last month, the UN said it had documented instances of "radicalisation, fund-raising, training and incitement of external operations" at Al Hol. their relatives detained in camps," the SDF added. "The danger of the IS group lives on in the thousands of prisoners held in jails as well as.
Some detainees see the camp as the last vestige of the cross-border "caliphate". Most suspected ISIS relatives are being kept in the Al Hol camp, the largest of the settlements controlled by Kurdish authorities.Īl Hol holds almost 62,000 people, mostly women and children, including Syrians, Iraqis and thousands from Europe and Asia accused of family ties with ISIS fighters.
The SDF reiterated calls on Tuesday for countries to boost repatriation efforts and establish international tribunals to prosecute those in detention accused of being terrorists. while their governments look the other way," HRW's Ms Letta Tayler said. "Men, women, and children from around the world are entering a third year of unlawful detention in life-threatening conditions. Related Story Bangladesh says ISIS teenager Shamima Begum not eligible for citizenship
Repeated calls for Western countries to repatriate their nationals have largely fallen on deaf ears, with just a handful of children and a few women being brought home. They include 27,500 children, at least 300 of whom are in squalid prisons, while the rest are kept in rehabilitation centres or locked camps, HRW said. Syria's Kurds hold nearly 43,000 foreigners with links to the terror group in jails and informal displacement camps, Human Rights Watch said on Tuesday. The tens of thousands of extremists in Kurdish jails and suspected ISIS relatives held in displacement camps have emerged as an extremist powder keg. In October 2019, a US strike on Syria killed ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and several other prominent figures.īut Baghdadi's successor, Mohammed Said Abd al-Rahman al-Mawla, has been able to direct and inspire new attacks. They would go on to oust ISIS from key areas, including the extremists' de facto capital Raqqa in 2017. Kurdish fighters joined ranks with Arab forces to form the US-backed SDF alliance in 2015. Related Story ISIS attack kills 19 in central Syria