Trump’s Syria Gambit Risks Freeing ISIS Fighters Nobody Wants
- Hundreds of foreign jihadis, including Americans, still held
- Most countries don’t want captives from their nations back
Photographer: AFP via Getty Images
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A month after President Donald Trump said he’d pull U.S. forces from Syria, a critical global security question is unanswered: the fate of hundreds of Islamic State fighters and their families -- including Europeans and Americans –- held by Kurdish forces in makeshift prisons.
U.S. 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 Islamic State alongside the U.S., says the number of family members of captured fighters may top 4,000.