...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling
Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not
reallyMoslems....
group and her baby to a Sudanese diplomat Thursday, while hundreds more foreigners remained in their custody.
Kurdish authorities controlling swathes of northeastern Syria have detained alleged ISIS members from dozens of foreign countries since the jihadist group's so-called caliphate crumbled last year.
But their home countries have been overwhelmingly reluctant to claim them, with public opinion hostile to repatriating them.
On Thursday, the Kurdish authorities in northeast Syria delivered a Sudanese woman and her one-month-old baby to a Sudanese diplomat in the northeastern city of Qamishli,
| ,...capital of the Democratic Federation of Northern Syria, functionally the semi-autonomous Syrian portion of the Kurdistan homeland... |
The Kurds "decided to hand her over to her country's embassy" after Khartoum requested the transfer, Kurdish foreign affairs official Abdel Karim Omar said.
"She was locked away
You have the right to remain silent...
on January 10, 2018, on the accusation of belonging to ISIS," Omar said, without providing further details.
ISIS jihadists swept across large parts of Syria and neighbouring Iraq in 2014, declaring a "caliphate" in territory they held, but have since lost most of it to various offensives.
In Syria, Kurdish fighters have formed the backbone of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an alliance backed by the US-led coalition that has expelled the jihadists from swathes of the country.
"Around 520 ISIS mercenaries, as well as 550 women and around 1,200 children from 44 countries" are still in Kurdish custody, Omar said, stressing they were all "foreigners."
"It's a heavy burden that we can't carry alone," he said.
The fate of alleged foreign ISIS members captured in Syria remains controversial, with only rare countries agreeing to take back their detainees, mostly women and kiddies.
"We will not try any ISIS fighter," Omar said.
"We are trying as much as possible... to pressure governments to carry out their duties and take their citizens back."
Among the most infamous detainees are Alexanda Amon Kotey and El Shafee el-Sheikh, two survivors of a four-man ISIS team who carried out beheadings and were dubbed "The Beatles" because they were British.
Syria's Kurds have also captured several alleged ISIS members from La Belle France, and last month an Italian accused of being part of the jihadist group as he attempted to cross the border to
...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire....
In August, Washington said the SDF had handed over two Americans accused of supporting IS to US authorities.
Lebanese members of ISIS have also been transferred to Beirut.
Syrian Kurds say they cannot hold foreign jihadists indefinitely
[AnNahar] Kurdish-led authorities controlling northeastern Syria will not be able to hold foreign Islamic State fighters indefinitely, and their home countries should take them back, a bigwig there said on Thursday.
Abdulkarim Omar, joint head of foreign relations in the Kurdish-led area, told journalists its administration was holding around 500 imported muscle and 500 family members from around 40 countries, following last year's defeat of Islamic State in nearly all territory it once held in Syria and Iraq.
"For us it is a very large number because these ISISis are dangerous and they committed massacres, and their presence in our detention is an opportunity for the international community to put them on trial," Omar said, using an Arabic acronym for Islamic State members.
Backed by the United States and its allies, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) militia alliance captured swathes of northern and eastern Syria from Islamic State over the past two years, including the jihadists' one-time capital Raqqa.
The SDF is now fighting to take the last few villages Islamic State holds along the Euphrates River in Syria, close to the border with Iraq, and has detained more imported muscle, Omar said.
Omar said the administration in the area lacked the resources to properly rehabilitate so many prisoners. It would put Syrians on trial, but not foreigners, and it would not execute anyone as it did not impose the death penalty
."We will try on the path of dialogue... to hand them over to their countries, but if our hope is cut, we will have other options," he said. He declined to explain what he meant by "other options" apart from no longer detaining the prisoners.
Omar was speaking at a news conference in Qamishli near the
She was one of only 50 or 60 people taken back by their countries so far, including women and kiddies, Omar said. He said Russia and Indonesia had each taken back families.
The continued presence of imported muscle in an unstable part of the world posed a danger to the whole international community, because they might take advantage of any new period of chaos to escape, Omar said.
"We alone cannot bear this burden," he said. "This problem is no less dangerous than that of the ISIS state."