Trump’s gambit in Syria risks freeing hundreds of IS fighters

Bloomberg

A month after President Donald Trump said he’d pull US forces from Syria, a critical global security question is unanswered: What to do with hundreds of IS fighters and their families —including Europeans and Americans—held by Kurdish forces in makeshift prisons?
US officials estimate there are 800 prisoners who need to be dealt with at a series of Kurdish-run prisons and holding facilities across northern Syria. Ilham Ahmed, a senior official with a Kurdish group that fought IS alongside the US, says the number of family members of captured fighters may top 4,000. One thing is clear, Ahmed says: “No one wants to take them.”
As Trump tries to meet a campaign pledge by getting America out of intractable Mideast wars, the prisoners have become a stumbling block — one reason the administration has been walking back the president’s December promise of a quick withdrawal.
There was concern that the Kurds, facing the bigger threat of a Turkish attack after their erstwhile US allies leave, may be unable or unwilling to hold the prisoners.
That risked allowing hardened IS fighters to return to their home countries, or resume the fight in Syria, where the self-proclaimed IS caliphate has been reduced to a couple of villages.
“This is a serious issue that’s got to be addressed quickly,” said Seth Jones, director of the Transnational Threats Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, when asked about the IS prisoners.
‘Political Tool’
There’s debate over whether the Kurds would really let prisoners go, or are using them as leverage. Ayham Kamel, head of Middle East and North Africa research at Eurasia Group, said the threat to free them is likely “just a political tool.”
America’s key local allies in the IS fight, the Kurds, were shocked and dismayed by Trump’s pullout plan — and even more so when he invited their enemy Turkey to send troops into Syria to fill the gap. The perceived betrayal has spurred Kurdish leaders to start talks on reunifying their territories under the Damascus government of President Bashar al-Assad. So one potential fate for the extremist captives is that they end up in Assad’s jails.
There are other possibilities. The US preference would be for the countries that the IS fighters originally came from to take responsibility for them, said an administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity.
But most foreign governments are reluctant to do so. Some fear the returning extremist could radicalize their cellmates. Housing them separately could strain resources and legal systems. And there’s the question of what to do with their wives and children.

Guantanamo?
Among the hundreds of imprisoned IS fighters in Kurdish custody, Ahmed said there are 10 US citizens, and that the US isn’t asking for any of them back. The White House declined to provide an update on US plans when asked by Bloomberg News.
Russia in December resumed a suspended program to repatriate children of IS fighters whose mothers are in prison and reunite them with other family members. France’s Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday that it’s preparing for the potential return of IS fighters, after BFM TV reported that 130 French citizens could be returned from Syria.