SDF Still Holds 5,000 Foreign Terrorist Fighters Because No Country Wants Them Back - SDC

Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) still hold some 5,000 foreign terrorists in custody because no country wants to take them back, Syrian Democratic Council Representative in the United States and member of the Presidential Committee, Bassam Saker, told Sputnik

WASHINGTON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 18th May, 2021) Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) still hold some 5,000 foreign terrorists in custody because no country wants to take them back, Syrian Democratic Council Representative in the United States and member of the Presidential Committee, Bassam Saker, told Sputnik.

"The number of detainees is still around 5,000. They are fighters from many countries," Saker said. "No country wants to take them back."

He said the Syrian Democratic Council (SDC) asked respective countries to take them back, "but nobody did that."

Saker also said the SDC has appealed to various countries to take back their citizens from the Al Hawl refugee camp, given that younger residents there are influenced by the ideology of the Islamic State terror group (outlawed in Russia).

"The situation there is not good. I can say it's very bad," he said. "That's why we ask the countries to take their citizens. They are growing up. The ideology inside the camp is ISIS [Islamic State] ideology, and they raise them like that. That's why these countries should take them back and to maybe to rehabilitate them for new education, not ISIS education."

Saker said many fighters from Europe are among those detained in the camp, adding that the authorities tried to utilize the media to call on various countries to take their nationals back, but achieved no reaction.

"Some of them [countries] want to take children without their mothers, which is not acceptable from our point of view. It's not good to separate the children and their mothers," he said. "They should take all of them, the mothers and the children."

Commenting on the COVID-19 situation in the prisons, Saker said there are some positive cases among the detainees.

Al Hawl hosts 62,000 displaced persons, with women and children comprising more than 80 percent of its population. The camp, which allegedly also holds families of terrorist fighters, is controlled by the Syrian Democratic Forces, founded in 2015 by Kurdish and Arab militias. Russia and Syria have consistently warned about the deteriorating humanitarian situation at the camp, located in the US-controlled area around the At Tanf military base.

In February, US Central Command (CENTCOM) chief Kenneth McKenzie said that the SDF have some 10,000 foreign fighters in more than two dozen detention centers throughout northeast Syria.