Iraq’s judiciary announced on Monday that it has begun investigating more than 1,300 ISIS detainees who the US recently transferred from Syria after Syrian government forces captured territory held by the Kurdish-led SDF, where the ISIS fighters were held.
“Investigation proceedings have started with 1,387 members of the terrorist organization who were recently transferred from the Syrian territory,” the judiciary’s media office said in a statement. “Under the supervision of the head of Iraq’s Supreme Judicial Council, several judges specialising in counterterrorism started the investigation.”
US Central Command announced on June 21 that it began an operation to transfer ISIS detainees from Syria to Iraq that could lead to the movement of up to 7,000 prisoners. CENTCOM said the purpose of the transfers was to “help ensure the terrorists remain in secure detention facilities.”
During fighting between the SDF and the Syrian government, which is led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, an offshoot of al-Qaeda with a similar ideology to ISIS, there were reports of government forces releasing thousands of ISIS fighters from a detention facility in Hasakah, Syria, the same place where CENTCOM began transferring detainees.
Despite the fact that the Syrian government is led by a former al-Qaeda commander and its military absorbed many foreign jihadists, the Trump administration now says that it’s a better ally in the fight against ISIS than the SDF.
US Ambassador to Turkey Tom Barrack, who also serves as an envoy to Syria, said in a post on X on January 20 that the US’s new alliance with the Syrian government “shifts the rationale for the US-SDF partnership: the original purpose of the SDF as the primary anti-ISIS force on the ground has largely expired, as Damascus is now both willing and positioned to take over security responsibilities.”
Barrack also said the Syrian government was willing to take over “control of ISIS detention facilities and camps,” though the US transferring thousands of ISIS detainees to Iraq signals it doesn’t trust HTS with that role.
The US has been deeply involved in the SDF-run ISIS detention facilities in northeastern Syria, providing funding and helping with construction. Amnesty International said in a report in 2024 that the SDF was responsible for torture and “mass death” that occurred in the facilities due to inhumane conditions, allegations based on testimony from people held in the prisons.
At the time of the report, Amnesty said that a total of 56,000 people, including 30,000 children, 14,500 women, and 11,500 men, were being held at the facilities. The report said that many of the women are victims of human trafficking and forced marriage to ISIS members, and many detained boys and young men are victims of ISIS’s child recruitment.
