TURKEY DEPORTS US SUSPECT AS PART OF ISIS REPATRIATIONS
▶ Ankara says it will send foreign militants to their home countries even if their citizenship has been revoked in a move sure to anger the West
Turkey yesterday deported a US citizen accused of belonging to ISIS as it begins a process of repatriating foreign fighters to their home nations.
Eleven French citizens captured in Syria are also set to be deported, as are Irish, German and Danish militants.
“Travel plans for seven foreign terrorist fighters of German origin at deportation centres have been completed; they will be deported on November 14,” state-run Anadolu news agency quoted Turkey’s Interior Ministry as saying. Broadcaster TRT said there were 813 militants being held at 12 deportation centres in Turkey.
Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said about 1,200 foreign ISIS fighters were in Turkish prisons and 287 members, including women and children, were recaptured during Turkey’s military offensive into north-east Syria last month.
Turkey, which is facing claims that it has not actively pursued ISIS suspects, has criticised western states for refusing to take back their citizens who fought for the terrorist group.
European nations have sought to extradite suspects to Iraq to face trial there rather than allowing them to return home.
There are concerns that the prosecution of suspects under European laws will be difficult and sentences would be short.
France in particular has actively sought to have its citizens tried in Baghdad and is pushing to set up a European fund to cover the cost on behalf of the Iraqi state.
The UK has stripped several high-profile ISIS suspects of British citizenship and issued temporary exclusion orders to prevent them from trying to return home.
London insists the suspects should be tried in the countries where their crimes were committed – mostly in Iraq and Syria.
But Turkey is now promising to send back ISIS suspects even if their citizenship has been revoked.
Most of those captured managed to escape from Kurdish detention when guards were removed to fight against the Turkish incursion.
Turkey launched the offensive against the Kurdish YPG militia last month after a decision by US President Donald Trump to withdraw American troops from the region.
The move prompted widespread concern about the fate of ISIS prisoners in the region.
The YPG is the main element of the Syrian Democratic Forces, which has been a leading US ally in beating back ISIS in the region. It kept thousands of militants and ISIS supporters in jails and detention camps across north-east Syria.
Turkey’s move to transfer foreign ISIS militants comes amid Ankara’s frustration with western nations that refused to back its offensive.
Ankara considers Kurdish militias to be terrorists because of their links to the Kurdistan
Workers’ Party (PKK) which has been waging an insurgency against Turkey since 1984.
Ankara’s offensive angered Washington and Turkey’s main European Nato allies.
There has yet to be any confirmation from the US about the deportation, or comments from other countries that may have been approached by Turkey regarding the repatriation of their citizens.
Meanwhile, three French women who escaped from a camp for suspected militants in northern Syria say they want to go home and face legal action in Paris over their alleged links to ISIS.
The three, interviewed in Syria’s Suluk town that is under the control of Syrian rebels backed by Turkey, said they had fled during the chaos of Ankara’s incursion last month and turned themselves over to Turkish forces in hopes of returning home.
The women, who declined to give their names, suggested they were prepared to go to France for the sake of their children, and said that conditions in the camp in Ain Issa, run by the SDF, were tough.
They gave no details about their life before detention. They are believed to be among the wives and children of former ISIS fighters killed or detained after the militant group was expelled from its strongholds in Iraq and Syria.
“We want to go back for our children to go on with their lives,” said one of the women, who like the others wore the niqab or full-face veil.
“I’ve been here for five years and I want to go back and go on with my life, go back to the time I lost. That’s it.”
A second woman said she wanted to return to France “quickly” and whatever the French courts decided was “not a problem”.
Their lives in detention were difficult. “Children got sick very quickly. There was not much to eat,” she said. “I want to go back to France with my son.”
A third woman said: “We have no problems with a ruling in France. It is for that reason that we handed ourselves over to the Turks, to go back to our country.”
Turkey’s move to transfer foreign ISIS militants comes amid Ankara’s frustration with western nations