Kurdish authorities in NE Syria release 34 ISIS members

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – The Kurdish-led Autonomous Administration in Northern and Eastern Syrian (NES) released 34 Arab members of Islamic State (ISIS) on Wednesday. 

This comes after the previous release of 300 others with ties to the extremist group, following a call from Arab tribal leaders in late 2019 to free those members of the group who have not been involved in the killing of Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) fighters. The SDF is the predominantly Kurdish military component of the NES Administration.

A group of Arab tribal leaders and signatories from the eastern Syrian province of Deir ez-Zor called on the multi-ethnic SDF on December 20 to release all their women and children held in camps due to “the difficult circumstances” faced in the camps, and described the women as representing “the honor and dignity of Arab tribes.”

One week later, an NES delegation visited Deir ez-Zor province and met with the Arab leaders. 

“The meeting was to listen to the people, their demands, and to open the space for their critique and observations concerning the performance of the civil council to evaluate the completed works on its part through the past years and standing on the popular suggestions for projects next year,” an NES statement read.  

There are currently more than 10,000 ISIS members in SDF prisons, including members who came frout outside Syria. 

Hussein Salmo, commander of the SDF Hasaka Military Council, told reporters on Wednesday that they released 34 members of ISIS, “who did not have the blood of our martyrs on their hands.” 

“We as Syrian Democratic Forces have decided to release those people who did not have the blood of our martyrs on their hands and did not fight them, and hand them over to our tribal leaders and dignitaries.”

“We released about 300 people [from ISIS] three days ago and 34 today,” he added.  

Salmo also said that the tribal leaders, “promised us not to let these people join forces who fight against humanity such as al-Qaeda and Daesh,” using the Arabic acronym for ISIS. 

So far around 850 ISIS members have been released by the SDF. 500 of them were released last year, said the commander.  

“There were no Assyrians or Kurds. All of them were Arabs,” added the commander.

The son of Jawhara Abdul-Latif has been in SDF prison for three months. She wished for him to be released on Wednesday, but he was not. He wanted to carry out an attack using an explosive motorcycle, but failed and was arrested. The 17-years-old son has been charged with being a member of ISIS.  

“I die a hundred times a day. I thought he would be released as well,” she told Rudaw. 

Taha Salih is one of the released. He told Rudaw after his release, “I was a member of Daesh. Qamishli court ordered my release. I am from Deir ez-Zor.”  

Islamic State militants controlled swathes of Syrian land in 2014, but with the support of the Global Coalition against ISIS the SDF was able to take control of Baghouz, the militants’ last bastion in Deir ez-Zor province, in March 2019. 

The Kurdish-led forces captured thousands of ISIS fighters in the fight, sending the families of the militants to al-Hol camp in Hasaka province.