The thorny question of Europeans imprisoned in Syria, put back on the table. At a meeting of the coalition in Rome against Daesh on Monday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken urged US allies to repatriate their citizens arrested abroad after fighting with Daesh. Some 10,000 suspected fighters of the terrorist group are being held in northern Syria by Kurdish fighters allied with the West, according to US estimates.
“This situation is simply untenable. It just cannot persist indefinitely, ”said Antony Blinken. “The United States continues to urge countries – including coalition partners – to repatriate, rehabilitate and, where appropriate, prosecute their citizens,” he added.
Italy and Kazakhstan greeted
France and Great Britain, two of the United States’ closest allies, have been the main resistant to calls for the return of their citizens, also launched by the administration of former President Donald Trump. These two countries, marked by bloody terrorist attacks, are very reluctant to bring radicalized citizens home.
Antony Blinken praised Italy, one of the few Western European nations to repatriate these fighters. He also praised the efforts of Central Asian nations like Kazakhstan, which he said has brought back 600 fighters and their family members by placing them in rehabilitation programs. Italian Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio, for his part, called for a new task force to be formed to deal with “the growing threat from ISIS in Africa”.
63,000 wives and children of combatant prisoners
According to a report by Human Rights Watch, published in March, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces detain more than 63,000 wives and children of suspected Daesh fighters from more than 60 countries in two camps surrounded by barbed wire .
Daesh has lost almost all of its territory in Syria and Iraq, where it once ruled a large, self-proclaimed caliphate marked by a campaign of brutality against religious minorities and women. Ministers of the coalition against Daesh, which has 83 members, mostly states, met on Monday for the first time in person since February 2019.