Iraq is weighing deporting hundreds of foreigners it has detained since the war on ISIS. The foreigners appear to have been arrested primarily on charges of being affiliated with ISIS or being family members of the terror group.
According to the AFP, “Iraq wants to return hundreds of foreign women and their children detained in the country, though two foreign diplomats told AFP on Monday the process would be a lengthy one.”
The report says that most of these people come from Turkey, Russia, and Azerbaijan.
During the ISIS war, an estimated 50,000 people from around the world flocked to Syria and Iraq to join the group. ISIS captured Mosul in northern Iraq in August 2014, 11 years ago, then began massacring minorities such as the Yazidis.
Many foreign volunteers were inspired by ISIS’s success. They wanted to come to Syria and Iraq for the chance to live under the ISIS “caliphate” and also join its Jihadist war of extermination against minorities.
Some of those who joined the group specifically hoped they could acquire women slaves kidnapped by ISIS.
When the ISIS “caliphate” fell apart in Iraq in 2017 with its defeat in Mosul, some of the foreigners were detained by the Iraqi government. Over the next several years more extremists were detained.
The number of detainees in Iraq is smaller than in Syria, where tens of thousands of foreign ISIS family members remain at Al-Hol and other camps. In fact, the Syrian camps continue to hold Iraqis who were ISIS members and whom Iraq has only accepted back slowly.
Many countries in Europe refused to allow their citizens to return after they had joined ISIS. It is not clear if Turkey or Russia will allow Iraq to send back their citizens.
Around 625 foreigners and 60 children are held in prisons in Iraq
The report at AFP says that “around 625 foreigners and 60 of their children are held in prisons in Iraq, a judicial source said, most of them linked to ISIS.” The decision by Iraq would seek to send back those who have not been given the death penalty.
The goal is to deport those convicted of lesser crimes. Those involved in ISIS crimes against humanity will likely remain in Iraq. The report also says there are two French women jailed in Iraq for crimes related to ISIS.
The Iraqi authorities created a committee “charged with establishing a plan for the repatriation of foreign and Arab detainees, as well as their children,” Iraqi justice ministry spokesman Ahmed Laibi said on Saturday, according to the report.
“We have hundreds of women and children in our penitentiary establishments,” the official added.
Iraq has a prisoner problem that is dictating this decision: its prisons are overcrowded, and many of the foreigners appear to be women and children.
Iraq hopes that foreign governments will be flexible and take their people back. “I’m not sure this can happen very quickly,” one European diplomat told AFP. This is an ironic answer, considering European countries have refused to take back their citizens for eight years.
Iraq didn’t ask that it happen quickly but has been waiting a long time. The same issue faces the Syrian authorities in eastern Syria. The US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) also have thousands of ISIS detainees.
European countries have not accepted back their ISIS-supporting citizens. Instead, they preferred to foist the problem onto one of the poorest areas of the Middle East – eastern Syria – and got away with this because eastern Syria is not a recognized “government.”
Now there are talks for the SDF to hand over the detainees to the Damascus administration. This would then put pressure on foreign countries to address the issue of their citizens in Syria.