The US military has completed the transfer of thousands of ISIS group detainees from Syria to Iraq, where they are expected to stand trial in the future, the US Central Command said Friday.
CENTCOM said that the transfer that began on Jan. 21 saw US forces transporting more than 5,700 adult male ISIS suspects from detention facilities in Syria to Iraqi custody.
The prisoners were transferred to Iraq at the request of Baghdad — a move welcomed by the US-led coalition that had for years fought against ISIS.
“We appreciate Iraq’s leadership and recognition that transferring the detainees is essential to regional security,” said Adm. Brad Cooper, CENTCOM commander.
Iraq's National Center for International Judicial Cooperation said a total of 5,704 suspects from 61 countries who were affiliated with ISIS were transferred from prisons in Syria.
The Center said most of the suspects were Syrian or Iraqi, though there were other foreign nationals from Europe as well as Australia, Canada and the United States, among other countries.
Over the past three weeks, the US military escorted the detainees from prisons in northeastern Syria run by the US-backed and Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, to Baghdad.
The transfers have helped calm fears that the recent rounds of fighting in Syria between government forces and the SDF would allow the ISIS prisoners to flee from detention camps there and join militant sleeper cells that are still carrying out attacks in both Iraq and Syria.
Iraq is looking to put on trial some of the thousands of the ISIS detainees who were held for years in Syria without charges or access to the judicial system.
When ISIS declared a self-proclaimed territory in large parts of Syria and Iraq that the militant group seized in 2014, it attracted extremists from around the world.
From the caliphate, the extremists plotted attacks around the world that left hundreds dead from Europe to Arab countries and Asia.
“The successful execution of this orderly and secure transfer operation will help prevent an ISIS resurgence in Syria,” said US Army Maj. Gen. Kevin Lambert, commander of the Combined Joint Task Force – Operation Inherent Resolve, that led the mission planning, coordination, and execution.
Iraq is in talks with other countries including Arab and Muslim states to repatriate ISIS prisoners, its foreign minister said.
Speaking in an interview with Reuters on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference, Fuad Hussein said Baghdad would need financial aid to deal with the influx and was worried about a rise in ISIS activity just over the border in Syria.
