WASHINGTON, Jan 22 (Reuters) - The U.S. military expects to complete the transfer of up to 7,000 Islamic State detainees from Syrian prisons to Iraq in the coming days, a U.S. official told Reuters on Thursday, saying hundreds would be moving across the border daily.
The U.S. military’s Central Command said on Wednesday its forces had transferred 150 Islamic State detainees from a detention facility in Syria’s Hasaka province to Iraq, citing the need to guard against any prison breakout.
The transfers are taking place after the rapid collapse of Kurdish-led forces in northeast Syria triggered concerns over prison security following Tuesday’s escape of roughly 200 low-level Islamic State fighters from Syria’s Shaddadi prison. Syrian government forces recaptured many of them.
The U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the U.S. transfers prioritized “the most dangerous” Islamic State fighters and noted that they were citizens of many different countries, including in Europe.
Iraqi legal sources said the IS detainees sent from Syria so far include a mix of nationalities, with Iraqis making up the largest group, alongside Arab fighters from other countries and nationals of Britain, Belgium, France, Germany and Sweden.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Thursday applauded Iraq for taking the prisoners.
“Non-Iraqi terrorists will be in Iraq temporarily; the United States urges countries to take responsibility and repatriate their citizens in these facilities to face justice,” Rubio said in a statement.
Islamic State emerged in Iraq and Syria, and at the height of its power from 2014-2017 held swathes of the two countries, ruling over millions of people. Its “caliphate” eventually collapsed after military campaigns by regional governments and a U.S.-led coalition.
The prisons that the Islamic State members are being transferred from are located in northeast Syria’s Hasaka province, where the Syrian Democratic Forces had been working closely with the United States for years to secure them.
The U.S. had been a backer of the SDF since 2015, when the force was conceived to expel the Islamic State group from Syria’s northeast. The SDF later used that territory to establish an autonomous enclave, with separate civilian and military institutions.
But in late 2024, President Ahmed al-Sharaa’s rebel forces ousted longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad and pledged to bring all of Syria under the new government’s control, including SDF-run areas.
The Syrian government has recently seized swathes of northern and eastern Syria from Kurdish forces, consolidating Sharaa’s rule, in a rapid turn of events that has brought almost all of Syria back under the authority of the Damascus-based state.
The United States has about 1,000 troops in Syria but has long mulled exiting.
With Assad toppled, U.S. President Donald Trump has developed close ties to Sharaa, lifting sanctions and welcoming Syria into an international anti-Islamic State coalition.
U.S. envoy Tom Barrack said on Tuesday the original purpose of the SDF had largely expired, and that the U.S. had no long-term interest in retaining its presence in Syria.
(Reporting by Phil Stewart and Idrees Ali; additional reporting by Maya Gebeily; editing by Diane Craft)
