An enormous Syrian camp for ISIS households faces an unsure destiny after a safety handover

AMMAN, Jordan — Rising up out of the desert in a territory acknowledged by nearly nobody, the massive al-Hol camp in northeastern Syria for years had posed an intractable drawback — a destitute and more and more harmful detention website the place ISIS ideology lived on.

Syrian Kurdish forces guarded and administered the camp and detained tens of 1000’s of girls and kids there. The detainees had been a part of the Islamic State’s self-declared caliphate, which the militant group constructed after seizing giant components of Syria and Iraq in 2014, and which was defeated by U.S. and Kurdish forces in 2019.

On Tuesday, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) mentioned in a press release that “due to the international community’s indifference towards the ISIS issue and its failure to assume its responsibilities in addressing this serious matter, our forces were compelled to withdraw from al-Hol camp and redeploy.”

The SDF mentioned the camp’s guards have been deployed to cities in northern Syria to confront the risk from Syrian authorities troops taking on Kurdish-held territory. Syrian authorities forces have moved in to safe the camp, saying the safety vacuum had allowed some detainees there to flee.

U.S. Central Command mentioned Wednesday it was beginning to transport 1000’s of detained ISIS fighters to an unnamed “secure location” in neighboring Iraq, however the destiny of the tens of 1000’s of ISIS members of the family at al-Hol remained unclear.

ISIS’ final stand was in Syria

Pushed out of Iraq by U.S.-backed Iraqi forces, ISIS made its final stand in Baghuz, Syria, about 200 miles south of al-Hol. Whereas america supplied intelligence, coordination and air cowl, the forces on the bottom in Syria have been principally Kurdish-led fighters who had managed the northeast of the nation since breaking away from authoritarian President Bashar al-Assad’s rule in 2012 throughout a bloody civil battle. The Syrian Kurds say they misplaced greater than 25,000 fighters battling ISIS with america.

Syria’s civil battle solely ended when Assad fled the nation in late 2024, toppled by fighters loyal to Syria’s new president, Ahmed al-Sharaa. The brand new chief was as soon as related to al-Qaida however now insists he desires an inclusive, democratic Syria.

After ISIS was defeated, the group’s surviving fighters have been positioned in additional than a dozen prisons. Their wives and kids — lots of them sick and ravenous — have been detained in al-Hol.

Whereas U.S. army commanders have lengthy linked lack of safety within the camp to a resurgent ISIS, the U.S. has grow to be more and more disengaged, based on former officers and researchers.

“Taking over a camp this large would normally require a detailed and deliberate handover,” says Myles Caggins III, a former spokesperson for the U.S.-led anti-ISIS army coalition in Iraq and Syria and a nonresident fellow on the New Strains Institute.

Kurdish commanders mentioned in a press release that they had tried to debate a handover plan for the camp with U.S. army officers.

The U.S. army didn’t reply to NPR’s request for remark. It referred NPR to feedback made by U.S. particular envoy for Syria, Tom Barrack. He mentioned this week on social media “the original purpose of the SDF as the primary anti-ISIS force on the ground has largely expired, as Damascus is now both willing and positioned to take over security responsibilities, including control of ISIS detention facilities and camps.”

Caggins famous that in December, President Trump signed a protection spending invoice allocating about $200 million in funding for SDF operations with the U.S.

“But now all of that has quickly changed. The U.S. and Washington, D.C., is running its full counterterrorism relationship through Damascus,” he mentioned.

Shedding hard-won territory

Over the previous few days, the Kurds have seen their hard-won territory in Syria crumble.

The territory seized by the Kurds and allied Arab tribes in 2012 grew to become the Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria — identified in Kurdish as Rojava, which suggests “west” — a reference to a dreamed-of higher Kurdistan.

Throughout the Syrian border, Iraqi Kurds, with the assistance of U.S. air safety, in 1991 broke away from Saddam Hussein’s regime. Iraqi Kurdish leaders courted Western oil corporations and turned the territory into what was generally known as essentially the most affluent and secure a part of Iraq.

However in Syria’s Kurdish area twenty years later, no nation acknowledged its self-declared autonomy and nations and organizations that handled the Syrian authorities have been cautious of being concerned within the breakaway area. Main assist organizations didn’t publicize their presence there.

The Syrian Kurdish area’s major crossing level to the surface world is, in some seasons, a small floating bridge throughout a slender river that connects it to Iraqi Kurdistan.

After holding out for concessions from Syria’s federal authorities that might enable them to retain some autonomy, they as an alternative confronted a army onslaught.

Remnants of the ISIS caliphate largely ignored

At its top in 2019, the al-Hol camp had a inhabitants of greater than 70,000 residents, and an acute humanitarian disaster.

On a go to to al-Hol with producer Sangar Khaleel in 2019, the camp was notably desolate. Ladies in black cloaks with their faces and arms lined according to their non secular religion waited within the rain for restricted quantities of meals to be dispersed.

“We pray for the Caliphate to return,” one of many ladies, refusing to provide her title because of her non secular beliefs, informed us.

“Convert, convert!” a bunch of girls and ladies chanted round me in Arabic, urging me to recite the shahada, the Muslim career of religion. The ladies and ladies quoted the Quran — incorrectly — in justifying ISIS killings of these deemed nonbelievers.

“If they don’t convert to Islam and they don’t become Muslim like us and worship God, then they deserve it,” mentioned an Iraqi girl who additionally refused to provide her title. Though they referenced the Quran, most of the ladies and ladies have been unable to learn.

On one other go to, Kurdish armed guards accompanied us to what’s generally known as the Annex — a closely secured space of al-Hol camp holding ladies and kids who’re neither Syrian nor Iraqi.

We have been allowed solely into the areas deemed secure sufficient to go to and just for a couple of minutes. An extended row of tents was dubbed “Australia Street” for the younger Australian ladies who adopted ISIS fighters to Syria or have been unknowingly lured there. Most nations, citing safety and logistics issues, have both refused to repatriate their residents from al-Hol or have taken years to take action.

Fueled by neglect and hardship, ISIS ideology persists

For years, the area’s Kurdish Syrian management and the U.S. seen the big numbers of radicalized ladies and kids as a continued hazard. Though there have been some de-radicalization applications funded by international governments, they don’t seem to be sufficient and do not embody kids, based on Kurdish officers.

Camp officers informed The New Humanitarian information website in November that al-Hol’s inhabitants was at the moment about 26,000 folks — together with about 6,000 foreigners from round 60 nations, excluding Iraq.

Not one of the residents have been charged with a criminal offense, making their detention in contravention of worldwide legislation, based on the U.N. 

The camp is filled with babies — born both through the self-declared caliphate and even in detention afterward as detained girls and boys attain puberty and marry.

Swedish researcher Malene Rembe was at al-Hol final September within the newest of a number of visits however was unable to enter the foreigners’ part as some residents had simply set fireplace to a undertaking there run by a U.S.-based assist group.

Rembe, who’s writing a e-book on survivors from the Yazidi non secular minority of the ISIS genocide towards them, mentioned relations between the extra militant residents and the Kurdish guards had deteriorated to the purpose the place the camp guards entered the foreigners’ part solely in armored automobiles.

She mentioned the sweeping cuts in U.S. international assist final yr had additionally affected the camp and additional enraged residents when she was there in September.

“The guards and the staff in al-Hol didn’t know anything in advance so they came to the camp in the morning and were told they had nothing to deliver. So they had no food, no water, nothing,” she mentioned.

She mentioned the U.S. granted an exemption for al-Hol and assist arrived a number of days later.

After years of indoctrination, hardship and neglect, many residents of al-Hol nonetheless pray for the return of the caliphate, and now face an much more unsure future than ever.