Iraq Receives Over 2,200 ISIS Detainees Transferred from Syria by US Forces

Iraq. Iraqi officials told AFP on Saturday that 2,225 Islamic State (IS) group detainees, transferred by the US military from Syria last month, have arrived in Iraq so far.

The US Central Command (CENTCOM) stated that 2,225 out of seven thousand IS detainees in Syria last month have been transferred from Syria to Iraq.

Previously, they were held in jails and camps operated by the Kurdish-led 'Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF)' in northeastern Syria.

This transfer plan was announced last month after Tom B. Barrett, the US Special Envoy for Syria, declared the end of the SDF's role in fighting IS.

Saad Man, head of the security information branch linked to the Iraqi Prime Minister's office, told AFP on Saturday, "Iraq has received two thousand 225 terrorists from the Syrian side in coordination with the international coalition."

He stated that they are regularly kept in strict detention centers. A source from the Kurdish army confirmed to AFP that "IS detainees are being transferred from Syria to Iraq under the protection of the international coalition."

On Saturday, an AFP photographer confirmed seeing a convoy of US military vehicles and eleven buses with tinted windows near the Kurdish-majority city of Qamishli in northeastern Syria.

Iraq Demands Extradition

Since 2014, IS had occupied territory in northern and western Iraq until the Iraqi army, supported by the international coalition, succeeded in defeating them in 2017.

Iraq is still in the process of recovering from the severe abuses committed by the jihadists. In recent years, Iraqi courts have sentenced those convicted of terrorism crimes to death and life imprisonment.

Thousands of Iraqi and foreign nationals convicted of membership in the group are in Iraqi jails. On Monday, the Iraqi judiciary began the investigation process for one thousand 387 detainees taken into custody during US military operations.

In a statement to Iraqi news agencies on Saturday, Man said, "The established principle is that all individuals related to the Iraqi and terrorist ISIS organization must be tried in competent Iraqi courts."

According to Iraqi security sources, the detainees transferred to Iraq include individuals of Syrian, Iraqi, European, and other nationalities. Iraq is calling on the respective countries to take back their citizens and ensure their prosecution. 

Man stated, "Once the legal requirements are met, the process of handing them over to their countries for involvement in terrorist acts will begin."