“I don’t wanna be in Syria forever. It’s sand. And it’s death,” said President Donald Trump at a press conference earlier this year.
The president’s reasoning for pulling U.S. troops out of Northern Syria has had a chilling, prophetic quality in the past couple of months. Following the hasty withdrawal of American troops in early October, the Syrian desert has once again descended into a deadly combination of sand and death.
While the president claims to have brought an end to U.S. participation in “endless wars” in the Middle East, American troops had actually been performing a necessary and efficient role in maintaining peace in the region. Along with their Kurdish allies, a small group of about 2,000 U.S. soldiers gathered intelligence, fought remnants of the Islamic State, and oversaw the detainment of thousands of ISIS prisoners.
Now, both local and international actors are attempting to fill the gaping power vacuum left behind by American forces, and the custody of 12,000 ISIS fighters and their families is at stake.
On October 6th, President Trump ordered the withdrawal of American troops from Northern Syria. Two days later, Turkish President Erdoğan launched an official campaign to push the Kurds away from the Turkish-Syrian border. The offensive has faced strong criticism from all sides — including the U.S — along with strong verbal condemnation and the cessation of arms sales from many of Turkey’s European allies.
Following the Turkish invasion of Northern Syria, Kurdish troops have been forced to abandon their posts as prison guards in order to focus their efforts on combat. With American forces gone and over half of the Kurdish guards repurposed for defense, the security of these prisons holding ISIS fighters face serious challenges. According to U.S. security officials, over 100 prisoners with links to the Islamic State have already fled since early October.
The long-term detention of men, women, and children in Syrian detention centers is increasingly becoming the biggest humanitarian risk and security threat in the region: unless foreign and local governments act fast, ISIS fighters and their families will be at the risk of shifting power dynamics in the region and at the mercy of Turkish armed forces.
Kurdish Wartime Detention Centers: What to do about ISIS Families?
Roughly 12,000 ISIS ex-militants are being held in ad-hoc Kurdish wartime detention centers established in former schools and large, abandoned buildings throughout Northeastern Syria. While the majority of these prisoners are from Syria and neighboring Iraq, many of them are foreign recruits from over 50 different countries.
International reporters that have only recently been granted access to these detention centers are starting to release photographs and reports of cramped quarters, disgusting facilities, and detainees as young as 14.
Even worse are the conditions in refugee camps such as the notorious Al Hol camp in northeastern Syria, where between 70,000 to 100,000 women and children live in legal limbo. Most of the refugees in these camps are the wives and children of ISIS fighters, many with varying degrees of loyalty to ISIS. While some of the women are radical hard-liners like their husbands, many of them have voiced their innocence and disaffiliation with the terrorist organization, claiming to have been tricked or even forced by their husbands to come to Syria. For these more moderate women and children, the camps have become a dangerous place where fights and violence often break out over religious differences.
Of the foreigners in the camps, nearly two-thirds are under the age of 12. According to the United Nations Human Rights Council, these children are living in poor conditions, and there are serious allegations of human rights concerns, such as lack of access to running water and education. So far, hundreds have died from disease and malnutrition.
The crisis is a regional one: in neighboring Iraq, roughly one third of the 1.5 million internally-displaced people constitute “ISIS families,” individuals and families with suspected ties to the organization or its members. Like the refugee camps in Syria, these displacement camps are overcrowded, understaffed, and unsanitary. The camps lack access to basic services like health, water, and education, and many of the detainees are forced to work for no compensation.
Under these conditions, the camps could serve as a breeding ground for the next generation of ISIS fighters.
The Prisoner Problem
Now the question remains: what should be done about the prisoners? In Shiite-dominated areas like Iraq that bore the brunt of ISIS violence, ex-militants face discrimination, if not death. Syrian fighters, on the other hand, may not have a home to return to. Finally, the foreigners are largely unwanted by their home countries, where politicians fear blowback from the unpopular decision to bring home ISIS fighters.
The U.K. recently faced international criticism for stripping an ex-militant and a teenage mother of their British citizenship. In response, U.S. defense secretary Mark Esper warned that European countries’ refusal to repatriate their nationals is only accelerating the security threat in the region. However, even the U.S. has refused to repatriate one Saudi Arabian-American dual citizen registered with ISIS (whose identity remains undisclosed), undermining their international stance on repatriation.
Inaction, however, cannot be the answer to this question. The desperation prevalent in these detention and refugee centers is evident: “[H]ow can the world leave us with this place? All its citizens are here and we are shouldering the burden for all humanity,” says one of the last remaining Kurdish prison guards in Hasakah, Syria.
Other advocates for repatriation, like Australian father Kamalle Dabboussy, have urged their governments to bring family members home. Many countries, like Australia, refuse to repatriate their detained citizens due to domestic security threats. In response to Dabboussy, the Australian minister of home affairs, Peter Dutton, declined his request, arguing that “[t]hey’ve been fighting in the name of an evil organization, and there are consequences.”
The lack of action on behalf of the international community signals to Iraqi and Syrian governments that the welfare of the men, women, and children detained in the desert is not an important issue, and opens the door for the further commitment of human rights violations.
Growing Stronger: Recent ISIS Activity
In a recent tweet, President Trump claimed that “the U.S. has done far more than anyone could have expected, including the capture of 100% of the ISIS Caliphate.” The recent death of commander Abu Bakr al-Baghadi has only bolstered the president’s confidence regarding the containment of the Islamic State.
Source: Twitter
Despite the loss of the Islamic State’s territorial caliphate, recent evidence suggests that the organization has re-adopted a strategy of insurgency, similar to the style of attrition used in the conquest of Iraq and Syria in the beginning of the decade.
According to the New York Times, ISIS retains 18,000 members in Iraq and Syria, a force that includes 3,000 foreigners. Recently, the organization has been seeking to expand control and influence in Iraq, where they have claimed responsibility for multiple assassinations, suicide attacks, abductions, and arson. In the Iraqi city of Karbala, the terrorist group claimed responsibility for a minibus bombing that killed 12, the deadliest attack on civilians in recent years. Across the porous Iraqi-Syrian border, ISIS has committed attacks on at least thirty village headman in an attempt to intimidate government informants and discourage cooperation with Baghdad.
With U.S. troops absent and Kurdish forces occupied with the Turks, the threat of an ISIS resurgence looms unchallenged.
Policy Recommendation
Pulitzer prize-winning journalist Thomas L. Friedman advocates for a policy of “sustainable engagement” in the Middle East, arguing that “[m]ost everyone now understands … that we don’t have the time, patience, energy or know-how to create democracy in the Middle East. But what we can do and should do is amplify decency wherever we see it in hopes that the islands of decency there might one day connect up and flower into democracy.” As a global superpower, America is unique because it shares interests and values with its allies, unlike the “client-customer” relationship between countries like Syria, Russia, China.
In contrast to President Trump’s strategy of isolationism, the international community should hold Syrian and Iraqi governments accountable for the treatment of their prisoners and refugees. “Governments should be doing what they can to protect their citizens, not abandon them to disease and death in a foreign desert.” says Letta Taylor, senior terrorism and counterterrorism researcher at Human Rights Watch. Foreign governments should prioritize the repatriation of their nationals, whether they are suspected of ISIS affiliation or not. At minimum, governments should accelerate the repatriation of women and children. In their home countries, fighters and families alike can be granted due process and a fair trial.
The RAND organization has proposed a multi-part plan to reduce the risk of radicalization in refugee camps, which includes disbanding militant groups upon arrival, lobbying for liberal administrative and legal policies in host countries, improved security, adequate shelter and provision of basic needs, and local economic resilience. The plan also emphasizes that children as young as 15 are often at risk of radicalization: hence, shelters should focus on providing younger refugees with educational and work opportunities, as well as other forms of stimulation.