ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Iraq’s national security advisor on Tuesday said the country’s “strategic” goal is the ultimate closure of al-Hol camp in northeast Syria (Rojava), which houses tens of thousands of suspects linked with the Islamic State (ISIS).
“The strategic goal of the Iraqi government is to close the Syrian al-Hol camp, because its existence poses a grave threat to world peace,” Qasim al-Araji said in a Baghdad meeting with Azerbaijani Ambassador to Iraq Nasir Mammadov.
Al-Hol camp is located in Hasaka province and houses over 50,000 ISIS-linked people. The camp has infamously been branded a breeding ground for ISIS, with authorities describing the sprawling facility as a “ticking time bomb,” saying the situation in the camp is “very dangerous.”
During the meeting, Araji said that the international community must cooperate to "remove this dangerous challenge" of extremism that originates from the camp.
The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), who control northeast Syria, fought the lion’s share of the battle against ISIS and arrested thousands of the terror group’s fighters along with their wives and children when they crushed ISIS territorially and took the group’s last stronghold in Syria in 2019.
Kurdish authorities in the region have repeatedly called on the international community to repatriate their nationals from the camps, but their calls have largely gone unanswered as most countries are unwilling to bring back their nationals due to security concerns.
The repatriation of ISIS-linked citizens has sparked opposition in Iraq, with tribes unwilling to accept and welcome people associated with the group that committed heinous human rights abuses and war crimes from 2014 to 2017, when they controlled vast swathes of the country.
