American Held as ISIS Suspect, Creating Quandary for Trump Administration

If the US citizen suspected of fighting for ISIS cannot be tried or released, the government could try to hold him in long-term indefinite wartime detention without trial as an enemy combatant. Reuters photo
If the US citizen suspected of fighting for ISIS cannot be tried or released, the government could try to hold him in long-term indefinite wartime detention without trial as an enemy combatant. Reuters photo
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American Held as ISIS Suspect, Creating Quandary for Trump Administration

If the US citizen suspected of fighting for ISIS cannot be tried or released, the government could try to hold him in long-term indefinite wartime detention without trial as an enemy combatant. Reuters photo
If the US citizen suspected of fighting for ISIS cannot be tried or released, the government could try to hold him in long-term indefinite wartime detention without trial as an enemy combatant. Reuters photo

Trump administration officials are divided over how to handle a United States citizen that the military has held in Iraq for more than three weeks as a suspected ISIS fighter, according to an official familiar with internal deliberations, raising a dilemma that could resurrect some of the biggest wartime policy questions of the post-9/11 era.

Providing the first details about a predicament that the Trump administration has kept draped in near-total secrecy, the official said the problem facing Pentagon and Justice Department officials is how to ensure that the man — who surrendered on Sept. 12 to a Syrian rebel militia, which turned him over to the American military — will stay imprisoned.

It may not be possible to prosecute the man because most of the evidence against him is probably inadmissible, the official said. But holding a citizen in long-term wartime detention as an enemy combatant — something the military has not done since the George W. Bush administration — would rekindle major legal problems left dormant since Mr. Bush left office and could put at risk the legal underpinnings for the fight against ISIS.

Admissible evidence is sparse, said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive information without authorization, adding that the FBI. and Justice Department were working to build the case. Spokesmen for the National Security Council, the Justice Department and the Pentagon declined to comment on the specifics of this account but did not contest its details.

But the pressure to make a decision is mounting. On Thursday, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a habeas corpus petition asking a judge to order the Pentagon to let its lawyers visit the prisoner and to rule that the government’s holding of him in detention without due process and unable to communicate is unconstitutional.

“The US government cannot imprison American citizens without charge or access to a judge,” said Jonathan Hafetz, an ACLU lawyer. “It also cannot keep secret the most basic facts about their detention, including who they are, where they are being held and on what authority they are being detained. The Trump administration should not resurrect the failed and unlawful policy of ‘enemy combatant’ detentions.”

But it is unclear whether the group has standing to bring that complaint without the man agreeing to let it represent him. Because Trump administration officials have refused to disclose his name, rights groups have been unable to track down any close relative to grant that assent on his behalf.

The Trump administration has said almost nothing about the detainee beyond acknowledging that he exists and was recently visited by the International Committee of the Red Cross. Spokesmen at the White House, the Pentagon and the Justice Department have repeatedly demurred when asked for even basic facts about what is happening.

When asked about the case at a security conference at Georgetown University on Sept. 14, two days after the suspect surrendered, John J. Mulligan, the deputy director of the National Counterterrorism Center, said he presumed that the individual would probably be charged with material support to terrorism.

The senior administration official partly opened a window onto the matter. The prisoner, the official said, was born on American soil, making him a citizen, but his parents were visiting foreigners and he grew up in the Middle East. The near total lack of contact with the United States slowed efforts to verify his identity, the official said.

The prisoner was interrogated first for intelligence purposes — such as to determine whether he knew of any imminent terrorist attacks — without being read the Miranda warning that he had a right to remain silent and have a defense lawyer present. The government then started a new interrogation for law-enforcement purposes, but after the captive was warned of his Miranda rights, he refused to say any more and remains in military custody in Iraq, the official said.

Investigators have also identified a personnel file in a cache of seized ISIS documents that appears to be about the captive, the official said. But prosecutors could have difficulty getting that record, which was gathered under battlefield conditions, admitted as evidence against him under more rigorous courtroom standards.

As a result, while the Pentagon wants the Justice Department to take the prisoner off its hands, law enforcement officials have been reluctant to take custody of him unless and until more evidence is found to make it more likely that a prosecution would succeed, the official said.

There is a limit to how long the military can hold a citizen without at least letting him talk to lawyers, said Stephen Vladeck, a law professor at the University of Texas, Austin, who specializes in national security matters, acknowledging the government’s predicament.

“It would be one thing if this were a cooperating witness who was being kept in incommunicado detention to protect his safety and his intelligence value,” Mr. Vladeck said. “But keeping someone in these circumstances simply because they don’t know what to do with him is not going to help them in court, if and when it gets there.”

The Pentagon spokesman, Maj. Ben Sakrisson, said that “captured enemy fighters may be detained” as part of the armed conflict against ISIS.

“A US citizen may lawfully be subject to military detention in armed conflict under appropriate circumstances,” he added, pointing to a 2004 decision in which the Supreme Court upheld the indefinite wartime detention of an American citizen captured in the Afghanistan war, Yasser Hamdi.

The New York Times



North Korean Leader Vows Support for Russia in its War on Ukraine

A photo released by the official North Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) shows North Korean leader Kim Jong Un (L) greeting Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov during a meeting in Wonsan, North Korea, 12 July 2025 (Issued 13 July 2025). EPA/KCNA
A photo released by the official North Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) shows North Korean leader Kim Jong Un (L) greeting Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov during a meeting in Wonsan, North Korea, 12 July 2025 (Issued 13 July 2025). EPA/KCNA
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North Korean Leader Vows Support for Russia in its War on Ukraine

A photo released by the official North Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) shows North Korean leader Kim Jong Un (L) greeting Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov during a meeting in Wonsan, North Korea, 12 July 2025 (Issued 13 July 2025). EPA/KCNA
A photo released by the official North Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) shows North Korean leader Kim Jong Un (L) greeting Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov during a meeting in Wonsan, North Korea, 12 July 2025 (Issued 13 July 2025). EPA/KCNA

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has told Russia's top diplomat his country was ready to “unconditionally support” all actions taken by Moscow to resolve the conflict in Ukraine, state media has reported, as the two countries held high-level strategic talks.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is on a three-day visit to North Korea, which has provided troops and arms for Russia's war with Ukraine and pledged more military support as Moscow tries to make advances in the conflict, Reuters reported on Saturday.

Kim met Lavrov in the eastern coastal city of Wonsan where the two countries' foreign ministers held their second strategic dialogue, pledging further cooperation under a partnership treaty signed last year that includes a mutual defense pact.

Kim told Lavrov the steps taken by the allies in response to radically evolving global geopolitics will contribute greatly to securing peace and security around the world, North Korea's state news agency KCNA reported.

“Kim Jong Un reaffirmed the DPRK (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) is ready to unconditionally support and encourage all the measures taken by the Russian leadership as regards the tackling of the root cause of the Ukrainian crisis,” KCNA said.

Earlier, Russia's foreign ministry said Lavrov met North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in the coastal city of Wonsan on Saturday, where he described the two nations' relations as “an invincible fighting brotherhood.”

The ministry quoted Lavrov as saying that the visit represented the continuation of “strategic dialogue” between the two sides inaugurated by Russian President Vladimir Putin's visit to North Korea last year.

In a message passed on by Lavrov, Putin said that he hoped for more direct contacts in future, TASS news agency reported.

Lavrov, the ministry said, also thanked North Korea for the troops it had sent to Russia.

Relations between the two countries deepened during the conflict in Ukraine.

Thousands of North Korean troops were deployed during the months-long campaign to oust Ukrainian forces from Russia's Kursk region, while Pyongyang has also supplied Russia with munitions.

Lavrov also met with his North Korean counterpart, Choe Son Hui, TASS reported.