Editorial Comment:

What to do about the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant fighters captured in northern Syria is a major headache for the Western countries whose nationals comprise many of the detainees. Britain has stripped identifiable UK citizens of their passports and effectively handed the problem to someone else. Until recently the responsibility for their incarceration lay with the Kurdish fighters who captured them. But the Turkish army border offensive has upended these arrangements, with the Kurds no longer prepared to be jailers as they fall back before the advance. What will happen to the hundreds if not thousands of jihadists left to their own devices is unclear. If they escape from custody, they could make their way back to the West. The Americans were sufficiently concerned at this prospect that they have spirited away at least two British fighters, part of the so-called Beatles group, to stand trial for murder. But the UK Government seems to be doing nothing.

Not only are the defeated jihadists affected but so are their families who lived in the so-called caliphate. There are an estimated 8,000 children, half of them aged under five. The BBC reported that three orphaned children born to British parents who left London five years ago are in one of the camps and want to go home. Last week, two orphaned children were handed over to a representative of the Austrian foreign ministry in Syria – the first such repatriation to a European country. The United States last year effected the return of a woman with her four children.

It would be unconscionable to leave innocent children born here to a grisly fate because of the activities and delusions of their parents. Britain must show some compassion and repatriate them.