Syria’s U.S.-backed Kurdish-led force has handed over two Islamic State group militants suspected of involvement in the mass killings of Iraqi soldiers in 2014 to Baghdad, according to a report by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. This comes after the Iraqi National Intelligence Service announced that they had brought back three IS members to the country, although further details were not provided. The Islamic State group captured approximately 1,700 Iraqi soldiers after taking over Saddam Hussein’s hometown of Tikrit in 2014, leading to what is now known as the Speicher massacre. The soldiers were attempting to flee from the nearby Camp Speicher, a former U.S. base.
Farhad Shami, a spokesperson for the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, confirmed that the U.S.-backed force had turned over two IS members to Iraq, while the origin of the third suspect remains unclear. This development is part of ongoing efforts to hold IS members accountable for their involvement in the Speicher massacre and other atrocities committed by the extremist group in the region. Over the past several years, Iraq has put numerous IS members on trial and executed them for their roles in the massacre. The two IS members handed over to Iraq were among 20 captured in a joint operation with the U.S.-led coalition in the northern Syrian city of Raqqa, once the capital of the Islamic State group’s self-declared caliphate.
Despite the defeat of ISIS in Iraq in 2017 and in Syria in 2019, extremist sleeper cells remain active and continue to carry out deadly attacks against the Syrian Democratic Forces and Syrian government forces. A recent incident involved a car rigged with explosives driven by a suicide attacker attempting to storm a military checkpoint for the Deir el-Zour Military Council in the eastern Syrian village of Shuheil. The attacker detonated the explosives when guards attempted to stop the car, resulting in the deaths of three U.S.-backed fighters. While no group has claimed responsibility for the attack, it bears similarities to previous bombings carried out by Islamic State militants.
Currently, the Syrian Democratic Forces are holding over 10,000 captured IS fighters in detention facilities, including 2,000 foreigners whose home countries have refused repatriation. The detained fighters represent approximately 60 nationalities and were captured in battles throughout Syria. Kurdish authorities in northeastern Syria have expressed intentions to put IS detainees on trial, although a timeline for such trials has not been established. The continued presence of ISIS sleeper cells in the region highlights the ongoing threat posed by the extremist group and the challenges faced by local and international forces in maintaining security and stability in the area.
