Families of Iraqi ISIS fighters to be moved to Nineveh from Syria’s Al-Hol: official

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Thousands of Iraqi families affiliated to the Islamic State group (ISIS) will soon be relocated from Al-Hol camp in northeast Syria to a purpose built facility in Iraq’s northwest Nineveh province, an Iraqi official confirmed Saturday. 

Around 70,000 people, including the wives and widows of ISIS fighters and their children, have been held in Al-Hol since the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) seized the last ISIS holdout of Baghouz in March 2019.

The squalid, overcrowded camp houses Syrians, Iraqis, and hundreds of Westerners who had traveled to the region, many against their will, to live under the so-called caliphate. More than two-thirds of them are children.  

There are more than 30,000 Iraqis living in Al-Hol.

Aliya Hussein, Iraq’s Ministry of Migration and Displaced representative to the Kurdistan Region, told Rudaw English on Saturday the Baghdad government is constructing a new camp close to the Iraq-Syria border called Al-Ammla.

“The Ministry of Migration and Displaced is currently working to build a camp near the Iraqi-Syrian border in an area called al-Kasik,” Hussein said. “It is planning to bring back the ISIS families in Al-Hol camp.”

The camp, which is currently 50 percent complete, is expected to open by the end of February or early March, she said.

However, communities in Nineveh, who lost ancestral homes, family, and freedoms under ISIS domination from 2014-17, are outraged at the news they will soon be hosting the families of militants in their province. 

“The local government and people of Nineveh did not agree to this step and they made many complains,” Hussein said. “But those ISIS families in al-Hol are Iraqi people and they should be brought back to Iraq.”

At the height of its power, ISIS controlled an area spilling across both Iraq and Syria equivalent to the size of the United Kingdom. Ten million people became subjects of its extreme interpretation of Islam.

Thousands of Westerners flocked to the region to fight for and build the caliphate, mainly through the Turkey-Syria border, including many women who chose (or were tricked) to become jihadi brides. 

With the territorial defeat of ISIS in March last year by the coalition-backed SDF, thousands of ISIS fighters were captured and herded into makeshift prisons. Thousands of spouses and their children, meanwhile, were trucked to Al-Hol to face an uncertain future.

At least 12,000 Al-Hol residents are foreign nationals, mostly women and children.

Several European states have refused to take back their citizens, fearing they will pose a threat to national security if they lack the evidence to prosecute them. 

On a case-by-case basis, France, Belgium, Germany, and Denmark have taken back several children born to ISIS-affiliated parents, as have authorities in Russia’s Chechnya. 

Maintaining security at these prisons and camps has proved a logistical nightmare for the SDF, which has repeatedly called on Western states to take back their citizens. 

Matters were made worse in October when Turkey and its Syrian proxies attacked the SDF in northeast Syria, pulling manpower and resources to the front line and away from anti-ISIS operations. 

The new Al-Ammla camp in Nineveh will have a limited capacity and not enough space to house all Iraqis currently held at Al-Hol.

“Al-Ammla camp is not that big and there are approximately 30,000 Iraqis in Al-Hol camp,” Hussein said.

“The Iraqi government is [therefore] planning to build other camps for the Iraqis who are displaced into Syria.”