BAGHDAD – Iraqi officials have requested the transfer of Islamic State group prisoners from northeastern Syria to Iraqi detention facilities, a move supported by both the U.S.-led coalition and the Syrian government, according to statements made on Thursday.
Representatives from both the United States and Iraq disclosed this request to The Associated Press. This development follows the U.S. military’s announcement that it has begun moving some of the 9,000 IS detainees currently held in over a dozen detention complexes in northeast Syria, which are under the control of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
The decision to relocate the detainees comes in the wake of Syrian government forces assuming control of the extensive al-Hol camp from the SDF, which had to withdraw as part of a ceasefire agreement. Earlier this week, forces seized a prison in Shaddadeh in northeastern Syria, where some IS prisoners had managed to escape before being recaptured, according to state media reports.
On Thursday, the SDF reported that government forces had launched heavy weapon attacks on al-Aqtan prison near Raqqa, also imposing a siege with tanks and deploying fighters around the facility.
Al-Aqtan prison, which houses some IS detainees, was surrounded earlier this week, and negotiations are currently underway regarding the future management of the detention center.
As government forces advance into northeastern Syria along the Iraqi border, concerns have arisen in Baghdad about the potential security threats posed by detainees possibly escaping amid the turmoil and posing risks to Iraq’s national security.
An Iraqi security official said that the decision to transfer the prisoners from Syria to Iraq was an Iraqi decision, welcomed by the U.S.-led coalition and the Syrian government. The official added that it was in Iraq’s security interest to detain them in Iraqi prisons rather than leaving them in Syria.
Also Thursday, a senior U.S. military official confirmed to the AP that Iraq “offered proactively” to take the IS prisoners rather than the U.S. requesting it of them.
Both the Iraqi and U.S. officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to comment publicly.
Over the past several years, the SDF has handed over to Iraqi authorities foreign fighters, including French citizens, who were put on trial and received sentences.
The SDF still controls more than a dozen detention facilities holding around 9,000 IS members, but is slated to hand the prisons over to government control under a peace process that also is supposed to eventually merge the SDF with government forces.
U.S. Central Command said that the first transfer on Wednesday involved 150 IS members, who were taken from Syria’s northeastern province of Hassakeh to “secure locations” in Iraq. The statement said that up to 7,000 detainees could be transferred to Iraqi-controlled facilities.
IS declared a caliphate in 2014 in large parts of Syria and Iraq, attracting large numbers of fighters from around the world. The group was defeated in Iraq in 2017, and in Syria two years later, but its sleeper cells still carry out deadly attacks in both countries. The SDF played a major role in defeating IS.
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Abby Sewell reported from Beirut.
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