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Iraq boosts security on Syrian border after US proxies free hundreds of ISIS fighters

The Cradle | August 1, 2024

The Iraqi armed forces have increased security along the country’s border with Syria following the release of hundreds of ISIS fighters from prison camps controlled by the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

“The porous nature of the Iraq–Syria border, coupled with the ongoing conflict in the region, creates ideal conditions for ISIS to regroup and launch attacks,” Ahmad al-Sharifi, a strategic expert, told Shafaq News Agency on 1 August, adding that Baghdad has increased patrols along the border region and are “closely monitoring the situation in northeastern Syria.”

Sharifi also explained that the prisoner release is a result of the need by the SDF to “free up manpower for the frontlines” to face a potential confrontation with Turkiye.

In mid-July, authorities from the SDF-controlled Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES) issued a general amnesty that has so far secured the release of over 1,500 Syrian ISIS fighters convicted of terrorism-related offenses, provided they “did not participate directly in combat” against the SDF.

The US-backed SDF holds thousands of ISIS fighters and their family members in around two dozen prison camps in occupied northeast Syria. These include 2,000 foreigners whose home countries have refused to repatriate them.

Kurdish officials said the amnesty was based “on the recommendation” of the tribal forum titled “Dialogue, Safety, Construction for a Unified Decentralized Syria,” held in Hasakah on 25 May.

“We, the Shabak, Christian, Yezidi, Kakayi, and Turkmen communities, are afraid of the resurgence of ISIS like the tragedy that occurred in 2014. Now that the SDF has released these fighters, where will they go? They will return to the border of Nineveh province or go to the Kurdistan Region, so the communities living in Nineveh are afraid,” Majed Shabaki, an activist from Mosul, told Kurdistan 24 last week.

“All those released by SDF have been dispersed along the Iraqi borders, and there is no monitoring. According to gathered information by the Iraqi government, none of these released ISIS fighters hold Iraqi citizenship and are all foreigners,” Mohammed Kakeyi, chairman of the Nineveh Provincial Council’s Security and Defense Committee, revealed to the Kurdish news outlet.

The mass release of ISIS fighters in northeast Syria coincides with an expansion of Turkiye’s military campaign against Kurdish groups on its borders with Iraq and Syria, plus renewed attacks by local resistance factions against US bases in both nations.

The move by the SDF also follows an ongoing resurgence of the extremist armed group in Syria, where they have repeatedly launched bloody attacks against the Syrian Arab Army (SAA).

In 2022, the US military described the SDF-run prison camps as an ISIS “army in waiting.”

August 1, 2024 - Posted by | Aletho News | , ,

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