The return of foreign terrorist fighters worries the U.S. intelligence
Washington – North-Press Agency
Hadeel Oueiss
The London Bridge attack launched by a former pro-ISIS prisoner has brought the talks about western extremist prisoners and the way to deal with them to the front in the western political corridors, the concern of this incident on Macron's escalating talk with President Trump on the sidelines of the NATO meetings in London. The Fellow at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) Nicholas A. Heras told North-Press that the incident of London would take a significant dimension in the western world regarding the way to deal with prisoners of the extremist terrorist group of ISIS in the future.
The terrorist who carried out the London Bridge attack was a prisoner under terrorist charges and he was undergoing intensive rehabilitation process in British prisons, yet he has carried out a terrorist attack that shook the western society immediately after his release from the prison, raising many questions today about the success of the western laws in deterring these terrorists, he said.
David Pollock, a senior expert at the Washington Institute told North-Press that tens of thousands of ISIS prisoners remain a major dilemma for the west and the world in general, while the world still remembers how the leader of the Islamic State and others of al-Qaeda prisoners in Iraq escaped when the breakdown of security in Iraq and the United States left in 2011.
He said: "These prisoners are looking for an opportunity for any breakdown of security in order to re-control the region and proceed with their projects exporting terrorist ideology to the United States and the European countries. Certainly, the existing danger does not come out only from prisoners of western origin; therefore, talking about returning those people and ignoring all its complications is nothing more than a topic of political exchange between countries and leaders.”
David Pollock believes that we will not hear about large batches returning to Europe from ISIS prisoners, adding: "This is very far from the possibility of achieving it, and no one can compel these countries to actually receive them and take them back even the United States.”
“One of the challenges that the U.S. originally fears is that the future of these ISIS Europeans who believe in the extremist terrorist groups when they become free and return to European countries with European passports then, they will not need to reach the United States with more than one plane ticket to New York or other American states," he said.
Pollock asserts that this is a source of concern for the U.S. intelligence agencies such as the CIA and the Pentagon that provide the U.S. Administration with full information about the extent of ISIS terrorist group’s threat to the American security.
According to Nicholas A. Heras, President Trump is right in principle that the number of ISIS prisoners should be reduced in Syria, but the French President Emmanuel Macron has presented a very realistic fact that the problem of the terrorist group is not limited to these detainees from western countries since there are detainees from all countries of the world, who have joined the ranks of the Islamic State, in addition, these countries especially the western ones and some Asian countries do not have the appropriate mechanisms to hold them accountable on their own territories.
Therefore, remaining in Syria under the grip of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) while preserving the international community's vigilance about the possibility of the return of the terrorist group and preparing to fight it is an option pushed by the western governments, but it must be accompanied by achieving the aim of establishing international legal tribunals that lead to fair and real trials for these prisoners, which requires greater political recognition of the SDF because the international trials if they take place in Syria it means handing them over to the Syrian government to implement the law eventually. Mr. Heras asserted that this is an option that the world does not want while the world, which is secretly whispering about this fact prefers trials in Arab countries such as Syria or Iraq for these prisoners, where the laws of these countries allow the execution of the dangerous ones in the future, in addition to getting rid of them while it is never possible in the west.
The U.S. Political Changes
Nicholas A. Heras says the U.S. political future and the fluctuations of the partisan competition will lead to continued support for the current fait accompli regarding ISIS prisoners, since the experience of leaving Iraq in 2011 and the complacency Obama administration with al-Qaeda, which grew out of its prisons, such the Islamic State, where ISIS supporters committed attacks in San Bernardino, California, and another attack in Orlando were among the most lucrative issues that President Trump used to attack Democrats and Clinton in the 2016 elections.
Mr. Heras continued: "Even if the future is with a democratic administration, no democratic president will favor putting his party and his presidential legacy in danger of complacency with the prisoners of the Islamic State, which will certainly be linked to the failure to support the SDF in its war against the terrorist group of ISIS and in its ongoing mission to keep these dangerous prisoners detained.”
According to David Pollock, the Republican Party will continue to push Trump to avoid a complete abandonment of the responsibility of keeping ISIS prisoners under control, because any widespread breakdown of security and any return of the terrorist group of ISIS in Syria would be a great long-term loss for the United States in the Middle East and its war against terrorism, in addition, the challenge of the Russian increasing influence, where it will not be easy to undo the U.S. withdrawal from Syria if it deepens and is further strengthened, especially in case the responsibility of the Islamic State prisoners is transferred into Russia or the Syrian government.
Mr. Pollock added: "For the Democratic candidates, although they haven't devoted much time to talking about the potential strategy in Syria, we have seen them criticize Trump's decision to withdraw and understand the extent of the threat that ISIS still poses to the security of the United States and to the world.”
"They also understand that this reduced stay in Syria and supporting partners in the SDF is a possible solution in order not to get involved in large-scale future wars in the Middle East," he said.
The U.S. refuses to take back its ISIS prisoners
As the dispute between President Trump and President Macron over the fate of ISIS prisoners and the London Bridge attack escalated, the U.S. National Radio (NPR) visited a prison containing the most dangerous Islamic State militants in Hasakah, northeastern Syria, controlled by the SDF, highlighting the American prisoners that the United States refuses to take them back.
While prisoners are begging through their lawyers to send them back to the United States, claiming that they were only providing logistical, medical and relief assistance to the Islamic State in the hope of compassionate U.S. laws that would try them for a short period after which they can obtain their freedom inside the United States.
While one of the prison head wardens from the Kurdish leaders in the Syrian Democratic Forces said, "these are our enemies in the first place, they killed our people and our children, and destroyed our societies and despite everything we treat them legally in accordance with the laws of the international prisons with a complete endeavor to make sure that these time bombs will not return put us and the world at risk.”
The American prisoner “Lerm Soleimani” who is affiliated with the Islamic State told NPR that he left Canada to the cities of the Islamic State in Syria, after the terrorist group promised the Muslims that living in the Islamic State of a wonderful and dignified providing free services, free and abundant food, and the Islamic life is at its best; yet on the contrary, he saw his family starving and his children getting sick before his eyes in the cities of ISIS, so he hopes to return to the United States for a fair trial, but this depends on the estimates of the FBI which has not moved to return them yet.
David Pollock said that President Trump when announcing the withdrawal from Syria, said in an irrational and unreasonable speech that Turkey will ensure that the ISIS detainees are kept safely, while the oil strategy and the change in the American vision over Syria changed the statement and said: "We will secure the oil resources for the SDF to continue guarding the prisons of the extremist terrorist group of ISIS and fighting it.”
Pollock added: "The irrefutable truth is that Turkey first, does not have the means to enter Syria with its forces or guard the camps and prisons of the terrorist group of ISIS, and it does not have the option of bringing them all into Turkey, who are tens of thousands or putting them in its prisons, in addition to the fact that those who are supported by Turkey from inside Syria are originally in one way or another are linked to the Islamic State, and this applies to many of them. Mr. Pollock believes that it is not logical that those linked to extremism, terrorism and banditry supported by Turkey to guard other prisoners who are actually "colleagues" of the Islamic State; therefore, the most realistic solution is to focus with the European countries on solving the challenge of the spread of extremism that has sounded a new alarm with the London Bridge attack.