Earlier this month, Kurdish-led authorities in northern Syria released 631 Islamic State (ISIS) fighters and halved the sentences of 253 others to fulfill a general amnesty declared in the region that is controlled by the United States (US)-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). The detainees were released after security forces deemed that they have “no blood on their hands” and have visibly shown repentance for joining the terrorist group. While most of those released are Syrian or Iraqi citizens and must now return to under-resourced and over-populated rehabilitation centres, 2,000 foreigners, including 800-odd Europeans, are stuck in an impossible situation, as their home states have refused them repatriation.
Across Syria and Iraq, roughly 80,000 former ISIS-affiliated men, women, and children continue to be held in around two dozen detention facilities and internally displaced persons (IDP) camps across the country. For example, the al-Hol camp in north-eastern Syria alone houses more than 64,000 people, 94% of whom are women and children living in extremely challenging humanitarian conditions. At this camp, around 34,000 children are under 12 years of age, while more than a hundred live unaccompanied or separated from their families, living under the care of an underfunded interim care centre. Just in July this year, around 700 individuals at Syrian detention camps died due to inhumane living conditions. The number of fatalities in these facilities have also increased due to the pandemic.
In large part due to the reluctance of Arab and European countries to repatriate them, these wives, widows, orphans, and children have turned into stateless refugees who now make up a majority of those living in other IDP camps. Further, an undisclosed number of men are being held in Iraqi prisons, which are infamous for their brutal treatment of inmates. International humanitarian organizations and the United Nations have expressed concern regarding the high vulnerability of children to radicalization as they spend time around several people who follow violent philosophies and also about the insufficient resources provided for their rehabilitation.
The ambiguity and incoherence in responses from the international community and its local partners—the SDF and Iraq’s security services—have also introduced new challenges, as thousands of former ISIS fighters indoctrinated with the militia’s extremist ideology sit idly in jail cells and refugee camps, harbouring anger and resentment. In several cases, these fighters have practiced violence even in detention, and experts fear that inaction on their rehabilitation and repatriation may see the creation of an ISIS offshoot, similar to how the Islamic State itself grew out of the Jamaat al-Tawhid.
Additionally, for many arrested male fighters, the lack of a reliable local criminal prosecution method doubled with the unwillingness of home countries to comply with aut dedere aut judicare (their obligation to extradite or prosecute), prisons and detention facilities are turning into new induction grounds to breed the next generation of extremists. SDF forces guarding detention centers in Syria are highly under-resourced, and their inability to maintain security has led to a large number of atrocities towards incarcerated fighters, including deaths, further radicalizing them. The SDF has also said that long prison terms have given several former fighters time to plan prison breaks—in March, dozens of ISIS detainees escaped a Syrian facility by starting a riot and using unhinged prison doors to break down walls.
Even more concerning is the fact that ISIS leaders themselves have vowed to liberate their prisoners. In 2013, Daesh militants attacked Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison, freeing over 800 detainees. More recently, ISIS fighters attacked an Afghan prison complex holding Taliban and ISIS members in a 20-hour raid. Of the 1,000+ inmates who managed to escape, 24 died, while 400 were never found again and are believed to have rejoined their ranks. This breakout threat has been exacerbated in northern Syria, as Turkish incursion into Kurdish-controlled territory has weakened the SDF’s ability to continue their counter-ISIS mission, as their forces are simultaneously engaged in fighting Turkish occupation. The coalition backing the SDF, who is still on the ground and continuing military operations against the group, has also warned that prisoners pose the largest threat to achieving a long-term defeat of the group.
Even if threats of in-detention violence and mass escapes can somehow be mitigated, detention and IDP centers need massive reform to be able to implement rehabilitation and deradicalization strategies. Currently, several experts have warned that camp conditions are directly responsible for supporting the jihadist-Salafi claim of grievances caused to Muslims by Western governments, further motivating both ISIS fighters and their IDP neighbours to become radicalized. But these reforms cannot take place without the involvement of international governments, especially European states, who have continued to distance themselves from taking responsibility for their nationals.
On 31 August, the UN Security Council voted on a draft resolution on “foreign terrorist fighters”, a phrase that serves as a catch-all term for members and affiliates of organizations like ISIS. The resolution, which was drafted by Indonesia, encouraged member states to take responsibility for the prosecution, rehabilitation, and societal reintegration of their nationals who were enlisted under these terrorist causes. Despite votes in favour of the draft from 14 member states, the US used its veto power to nullify the resolution on the grounds that it did not explicitly push countries to explicitly and actively repatriate their foreign fighters who travelled to and are detained in the Middle East. The US deemed the draft “worse than no resolution at all,” and while some analysts have said that the veto highlights an increasing rift between Washington and its Arab and European allies, others have hailed the decision as a saving grace to a “dangerously flawed” document that goes against the UN’s own Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy (GCTS) by undermining the rights of vulnerable women and children and the right of terrorism suspects to appear in a court before a judge.
A few other red flags in the draft resolution included ambiguous wording that children associated with these groups “may be” victims, which flouts the Paris Principles on minors associated with militant forces that states that even child soldiers must be treated foremostly as victims. It also omitted language recognizing that women may also be victims of the groups, ignoring the preceding 2017 Security Council resolution 2396 that recognized this fact. Further, it made no provision for the preservation of family unity, violating the Convention on the Rights of the Child that states that parties should not forcibly separate parents and children, bar for exceptional circumstances where authorities deem it in the best interest of the child to do so. Ironically, the US vetoed, even though it is accused of doing the same with immigrants at its Mexican border.
“This resolution was meant to address the prosecution, rehabilitation and reintegration of terrorists ... and their accompanying family members. And yet it fails to even include reference to the crucial first step – repatriation to countries of origin or nationality,” said Kelly Craft, the US’ UN envoy.
Yet, it is unsurprising that European members of the Council supported the resolution despite warnings from rights groups and the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Countering Terrorism about its potential damage. France, Germany, Belgium, Sweden, Switzerland, Denmark, Serbia, Albania, and the United Kingdom (UK) have all stalled repatriation for most of their own nationals and only do so for women and children on a case-by-case basis in long-drawn processes. It seems their reluctance stems largely from the fear of responsibility for possible future attacks on their own soil, potential backlash, and insecurity regarding their ability to safely monitor repatriated and extradited fighters.
While these may indeed be valid concerns, their argument becomes more tenuous when one considers that none of these countries have provided articulate rationales for the denial of repatriation to women and children, pointing to the fact that such policies may be more rooted in fear of public backlash than national security concerns. In October, British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said, “We certainly want to see those responsible for atrocities and crimes given justice in the region, so far as that is practical [...] In relation to the question of returns, we do not want to see foreign fighters returning to this country.”
However, there are some countries that have developed strategies that respect international obligations while also addressing the twin concerns of public backlash and national security. For instance, apart from the US, Russia, Kosovo, Turkey, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and most recently Finland have successfully repatriated hundreds of women and children. In April 2019, Kosovo conducted its largest terrorist fighter repatriation drive, bringing home 74 children, 32 women, and four men. The Balkan country also sees a high success rate in convictions—six of every 10 returned fighters have been convicted, compared to just one in ten in the UK.
Moreover, failure of capable and stable foreign governments to judiciously and fairly deal with their own radicalized citizens has also compromised the already ineffective Iraqi judicial process. While Western governments are better-equipped to criminally prosecute detainees, many, including France, depend on local criminal courts in Iraq to try their citizens—this is despite the fact that the French constitution prohibits citizens from prosecution in countries with potential capital punishment. According to a report published by the Middle East Institute (MEI), Iraqi trials for ISIS fighters do not last longer than 15 minutes, and suspects are usually convicted on the basis of their confessions. Further, their sentences are extremely harsh—ISIS fighters involved in combat are usually awarded death penalties, while non-combatant assistance can get them life imprisonment. Foreign nationals from Europe are particularly at risk, since several of their governments provide these courts with funding based on the number of inmate citizens, paving the way for longer incarceration periods, and rampant corruption and mismanagement to retain the influx of capital needed to keep courts running.
Due to this, a large number of former members and affiliates remain disillusioned about their futures, and the fear of eventual death incentivizes them to stay in their groups even longer. This is proving costly for regional stability, as Iraqi Sunni Arabs constantly find themselves arrested on ambiguous or false accusations and face existential hearings in Iraqi courts. MEI also points out that, alongside tyrannical sentences, arbitrary prisoner detention at undisclosed places “risk sustaining and inflaming the root cause conditions that led to the growth of the ISIS in the first place”. Alternatively, Western courts are likely to provide fairer trials given the stability of governance, respect for due process, and the absence of capital punishment, or its use in only the most exceptional circumstances.
As an alternative, the SDF has long-championed the idea of an international tribunal in Syria to prosecute ISIS fighters, but coalition members have not given this serious consideration due to the time and costs involved, especially after the coronavirus-induced global economic crisis. Yet, the risk of continued radicalization and clear human rights violations—especially against women and children—demand urgent action from the international community and accountability from rich European countries towards their own citizens.
However, current involvement is not nearly enough, and if these countries wish to see long-lasting change and reformation of former fighters, they must approach the issue with multi-pronged efforts. Foremostly, they should focus on reform and pressure campaigns on Iraqi courts to follow through with international conventions on terrorist trials and convictions, especially for foreign nationals. Secondly, mere repatriation and conviction are not enough; monitoring, rehabilitation, and deradicalization should be at the center of international efforts. If countries are not willing to invest time and resources into rehabilitation, which is proved to be the most promising long-term solution at avoiding reengagement in terrorist activity, the millions spent on their collective war on terrorism and in supporting local Middle Eastern governments will be fruitless. Particularly for children, there is a dire need for international efforts in providing psychological counselling. Furthermore, the need for a well-informed and legally binding repatriation policy aimed at avoiding new insurgencies is of utmost importance, and it is imperative that the Security Council reaches a solution for this soon, before local authorities crumble under the backlog and burden of cases and end up seeing worse violence than ever before.
The West Needs to Start Repatriating ISIS Fighters. Here’s Why.
Currently, ISIS women and children are highly vulnerable to radicalization and insecurity, as detention facilities and prisons in Syria and Iraq struggle to function.
October 23, 2020
Women reportedly associated with ISIS walk under the supervision of a female soldier of the Syrian Democratic Forces. SOURCE: AFP/GETTY IMAGES