ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Iraq on Saturday repatriated fifty members of the Islamic State (ISIS) from the Kurdish administration of northeast Syria (Rojava), a war monitor said, adding that 168 family members of the fighters were also repatriated.
The prisoners arrived in Iraq “with joint coordination between the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and the Iraqi government,” the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
The SDF are a Kurdish-led force who fought the final battle to drive ISIS out of its last bastion of territory in Syria’s Baghouz in 2019. The force controls northeast Syria.
According to SOHR, 168 family members of the ISIS fighters were also repatriated from Syria’s notorious al-Hol camp.
Located in Hasaka province, al-Hol camp has been branded a breeding ground for terrorism, with authorities describing the sprawling facility as a “ticking time bomb,” saying the situation in the camp is “very dangerous” with ISIS sleeper cells active.
Iraq has over the past year repatriated over 700 families from al-Hol, most of which are sent through a rehabilitation process in Iraq.
Thousands of suspected ISIS fighters remain in the SDF prisoners and about 56,000 people with links to the terror group are held in al-Hol.
On Tuesday, Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein and US Ambassador to Iraq Alina Romanowski discussed the transfer of Iraqi families held in al-Hol and the challenges related to the process.
The repatriation of ISIS-linked Iraqi citizens has sparked opposition at home, with local tribes unwilling to accept and welcome those whose relatives inflicted untold human rights abuses and war crimes on the country from 2014 to 2017, when they controlled vast swathes of the country.
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