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3. Iraq Opens Probe Into ISIS Detainees Transferred From Syria

Iraq’s judiciary announced on Monday that it has begun investigations into more than 1,300 suspected members of the Islamic State (ISIS) group who were recently transferred from Syria as part of a U.S.-led operation.

In a statement, the judiciary’s media office said investigative proceedings had started against 1,387 members of the “Daesh terrorist organization,” using the Arabic acronym for ISIS. The process is being carried out under the supervision of the head of Iraq’s Supreme Judicial Council and involves several judges specializing in counterterrorism cases.

The detainees are part of some 7,000 ISIS suspects previously held by Syrian Kurdish forces, whom the U.S. military said it would transfer to Iraq after Syrian government forces recaptured territory that had long been controlled by Kurdish fighters. According to Iraqi security sources, those transferred include Syrians, Iraqis, Europeans, and other foreign nationals.

ISIS seized large swathes of Syria and Iraq in 2014, carrying out mass killings and forcing women and girls into sexual slavery. With the backing of a U.S.-led coalition, Iraq declared the group’s defeat on its territory in 2017, while the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) pushed ISIS back in Syria two years later.

Following the group’s territorial collapse, the SDF detained thousands of suspected jihadists and tens of thousands of their relatives in camps across northeastern Syria. Last month, the United States said its alliance with Kurdish forces in Syria had largely run its course, as Damascus launched an offensive to retake areas long held by the SDF.

In Iraq, where prisons are already overcrowded with ISIS suspects, courts have issued hundreds of death sentences and life terms to those convicted on terrorism charges, including many foreign fighters. The judiciary said its current investigations “will comply with national laws and international standards.”

AFP