‘ISIS CAPTIVES MUST FACE JUSTICE OR WORLD IS IN PERIL’
▶ Countries must find ways to prosecute their foreign fighters in Syria before violence returns, says general
Hundreds of foreign fighters held by the Syrian Democratic Forces in the fight against ISIS will continue to pose a deadly threat until countries of origin find a way to bring them to justice, an international coalition commander says.
Maj Gen Felix Gedney, deputy commander of the coalition in Baghdad, said the ranks of captured foreign fighters had swollen by hundreds since Washington revealed last month that the forces were holding 400.
“They are very secure. The SDF is very effective but in the long-term we will have to find a pathway to deal with that issue because they will become a threat to us,” Gen Gedney said on Friday.
With the capture of Raqqa and other ISIS strongholds in eastern Syria, the forces have taken on the task of guarding the thousands of extremists captured on the battlefield.
But it is a non-state militia and not equipped to run longterm detention centres, much less oversee a process of trials.
Gen Gedney said the coalition was pressing its member states to repatriate the foreigners being held or to find an alternative framework for punishing any crimes.
A global solution was necessary to forestall regional or international dangers of the men resuming the fight in the future.
Despite the collapse of ISIS across large areas of Syria and Iraq, the group retains strongholds in north-east Syria and the Euphrates River valley.
Operation Roundup would continue for several months over the summer.
ISIS is a “learning enemy” that has regenerated its media activities and reshaped its tactics for the last-ditch defence of its final bastions.
“I don’t think they changed brand, they changed tactics,” Gen Gedney said.
He revealed that a controversial truce that allowed 3,500 ISIS fighters to leave Raqqa in a bus convoy last October came about under UN pressure for a humanitarian pause. But for that, many “would be dead by now” and not posing a threat.
Two of the foreigners held by the forces have already called on their home country to take them back to face trial.
Alexanda Kotey and El Shafee El-Sheikh said Britain should allow them to face trial even though both have been stripped of their UK citizenship and rendered stateless.
British officials have rejected the idea. The two are alleged to be part of the notorious Beatles, a group of killers with British accents who beheaded hostages on camera.
“I don’t think they should ever set foot in this country again. I am glad they have been hunted down and now is time for them to be held to account,” British Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson said in February.
Experts are not so sure the authorities are on a firm legal footing. Lord Carlile of Berriew, a lawyer and former independent reviewer of counter-terrorism laws, said that as the men went to Syria as British citizens, a trial in the UK was the proper forum.
“Their victims include British nationals and their families who have a legitimate expectation that the UK government will use its best efforts to ensure that a trial to rule of law standards will occur,” Mr Carlile said.
“The fact that the pair no longer have UK citizenship is not a bar to trial.”
Meanwhile, Iraq flew several air strikes on a pocket of ISIS control in Syria. Several attacks have been carried out by Iraq and the international coalition since Thursday against the centre of Hajin, the last major area held by ISIS.
Hajin is in Deir Ezzor province in eastern Syria, about 50 kilometres from Iraq’s border, where at least 65 senior ISIS leaders live.
It has been surrounded since the end of last year but forces have held back from a final assault, in part because several hundred prisoners are held there.
The strikes are the latest by Iraq’s air force on ISIS-held Syrian territory close to the border between the two countries.
ISIS seized a third of Iraq in 2014, before the government declared victory in December, but the military has continued regular operations along the porous Syrian border.
Kotey and El Sheikh want a trial in the UK despite being stripped of their citizenship, accused of roles in the ‘Beatles’ cell