GOVTS MULLING THEIR FATE
Germany says its citizens have right to return, Morocco systematically jails them
THE imminent fall of the Islamic State’s caliphate in Iraq and Syria has left many countries grappling with what to do with jihadists who want to return.
Several hundred foreign jihadists are being detained by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). Added to them are women who have not taken part in the fighting and children.
Their home countries include Tunisia, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Russia — as well as France, Britain, Germany and Belgium.
Around 50 French men and women, as well as 80 children, are being detained in Syria.
Another 250 men were still at large in Syria last month, along with women and children.
More than 300 French jihadists are believed to have been killed while fighting for the IS. The French authorities say they want to avoid the jihadists scattering and have raised the prospect of repatriating the 130 nationals currently in SDF hands.
Out of more than 400 Belgians who went to fight with the jihadists since 2012, around 150 were still active in Syria and Iraq late last year.
Belgium says it will help the repatriation of children younger than 10, as long as the link with one Belgian parent is proven.
A third of the more than 1,050 Germans who journeyed to Syria or Iraq have returned.
“All German citizens, including those suspected of having fought for the IS, have the right to return to Germany,” according to the Foreign Ministry.
By June last year, almost 400 of 900 British jihadists had returned. A top anti-terrorism official recently qualified their return as a “big national security threat”.
Nearly 4,500 Russian citizens went abroad to fight alongside “the terrorists”, the Russian security services said last year.
Moscow has not announced plans to repatriate jihadists but since last year, around 100 women and children, mainly from Russia’s Islamic republics in the Caucasus, have returned under a programme championed by Chechen strongman Ramzan Kadyrov.
In November, however, Chechen activist Kheda Saratova accused the FSB security service of blocking attempts to bring back the remaining widows and children of Russian fighters.
In 2015, the number of Moroccans fighting in Iraq and Syria was estimated at more than 1,600. On their return, they are systematically put on trial and jailed. More than 200 returnees had been prosecuted.
Some 590 Indonesians who have joined IS are still in Syria. Those who return have to go through a deradicalisation programme before being freed under surveillance.