Iraq is handed over to over 150 Iraqis from the Islamic State

BAGHDAD – US-backed Syrian forces are fighting against the group of Islamic extremist states, handing over to Iraq more than 150 Iraqi members of the radical militia, an Iraqi security official said Thursday.

The extremists were handed over to the Iraqi authorities overnight and were in a "safe place" during the investigation, said the official who requested anonymity, in accordance with local regulations.

This is the largest repatriation of captured militants to Syria, a subject that hurts the heads of Europeans and other nations whose citizens are imprisoned in Syria because they are considered foreign fighters. The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) has about 1,000 foreign fighters imprisoned in the north of the country, many of whom are Iraqis and Europeans.

The Syrian force led by the Kurds and, more recently, US President Donald Trump have recently asked these countries to recover their citizens. The SDS said it could not afford to withhold captured foreigners in Syria, but that few of their countries claimed them.

Earlier this month, Iraqi Prime Minister Abdul-Mahdi said that Iraq would accept all Iraqi members of the Islamic State in Syria, as well as their thousands of loved ones.

The Iraqi security official, who requested anonymity in accordance with the regulations, said that more than 20,000 Iraqis suspected of belonging to the Islamic State in prisons in northern Syria would be now transferred in groups to the country. .

The delivery comes as Washington-backed SDFs struggle to take control of the last stronghold that controls the Islamic State in southeast Syria near the Iraqi border before the group's imminent defeat on Friday. territory. .

Some 300 extremists, as well as hundreds of civilians, mostly from their families, have been besieged for more than a week at a camp in Baghouz village in eastern Syria. We do not know how many civilians remain entrenched inside, with the militia.