(Beirut) A senior US military official warned on Saturday of the threat of an “army” of the armed group Islamic State (IS) detained in Iraq and Syria, following a visit to prisons and camps where suspected jihadists and their relatives are detained.
“While visiting the detention center, I saw the imminent threat posed by this group of detained IS fighters,” the head of the US military command for the Middle East (Centcom), General Michael Kurilla.
He visited several detention centers this week, including that of Ghwayran in Hassaké, in northeastern Syria, where hundreds of people were killed after jihadists stormed it in early 2022, according to the communicated.
“Between those detained in Syria and Iraq, it is a veritable IS army in detention. If released, this group would pose a great threat to the region and beyond,” he said.
Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF, dominated by Kurdish fighters) and Ghwayran prison administrators described inmates as “unrepentant, likely to further radicalize […] and like a ticking time bomb,” according to Centcom.
The SDF, backed by an international coalition led by the United States, spearheaded the fight against ISIS, driven from its strongholds in Syria in 2019, after a meteoric rise in power in 2014 and the conquest of vast territories in this country and in neighboring Iraq.
Tens of thousands of people, including relatives of jihadists, were detained over the following years in camps run by Kurdish forces.
Despite repeated calls from the Kurdish administration, most Western countries refuse to repatriate their citizens from these camps, contenting themselves with repatriations in dribs and drabs for fear of possible terrorist acts on their soil.
Michael Kurilla also visited the Roj and al-Hol camps in northeastern Syria.
Children in al-Hol, where some 10,000 foreigners are camped, “are at daily risk of being indoctrinated”, Centcom warned, adding that teenagers of foreign parents “have expressed a desire to return to their country of origin”. .
The American general called for the “repatriation, rehabilitation and reintegration of the inhabitants of the camp in their country […] of origin”.
The fight against the jihadists “is a fight for the security and stability not only of Syria and Iraq, but of the whole region”, he said. “We absolutely cannot allow a resurgence of IS. »