Baghdad says it will prosecute Islamic State militants being moved from Syria to Iraq

BAGHDAD (AP) — Baghdad will prosecute and try militants from the Islamic State group who are being transferred from prisons and detention camps in neighboring Syria to Iraq under a U.S.-brokered deal, Iraq said Sunday.

The announcement from Iraq’s highest judicial body came after a meeting of top security and political officials who discussed the ongoing transfer of some 9,000 IS detainees who have been held in Syria since the militant group's collapse there in 2019.

The need to move them came after Syria's nascent government forces last month routed Syrian Kurdish-led fighters — once top U.S. allies in the fight against IS — from areas of northeastern Syria they had controlled for years and where they had been guarding camps holding IS prisoners.

Syrian troops seized the sprawling al-Hol camp — housing thousands, mostly families of IS militants — from the Kurdish-led force, which withdrew as part of a ceasefire. Troops last Monday also took control of a prison in the northeastern town of Shaddadeh, from where some IS detainees had escaped during the fighting. Syrian state media later reported that many were recaptured.

Now, the clashes between the Syrian military and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF, sparked fears of IS activating its sleeper cells in those areas and of IS detainees escaping. The Syrian government under its initial agreement with the Kurds said it would take responsibility of the IS prisoners.

Baghdad has been particularly worried that escaped IS detainees would regroup and threaten Iraq’s security and its side of the vast Syria-Iraq border.

Once in Iraq, IS prisoners accused of terrorism will be investigated by security forces and tried in domestic courts, Iraq's Supreme Judicial Council said.

The U.S. military started the transfer process on Friday with the first IS prisoners moved from Syria to Iraq. On Sunday, another 125 IS prisoners were transferred, according to two Iraqi security officials who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.

So far, 275 prisoners have made it to Iraq, a process that officials say has been slow as the U.S. military has been transporting them by air.

Both Damascus and Washington have welcomed Baghdad's offer to have the prisoners transferred to Iraq.

Iraq’s parliament will meet later on Sunday to discuss the ongoing developments in Syria, where its government forces are pushing to boost their presence along the border.

The fighting between the Syrian government and the SDF has mostly halted with a ceasefire that was recently extended. According to Syria's Defense Ministry, the truce was extended to support the ongoing transfer operation by U.S. forces.

The Islamic State group was defeated in Iraq in 2017, and in Syria two years later, but IS sleeper cells still carry out deadly attacks in both countries. As a key U.S. ally in the region, the SDF played a major role in defeating IS.

During the battles against IS, thousands of extremists and tens of thousands of women and children linked to them were taken and held in prisons and at the al-Hol camp. The sprawling al-Hol camp hosts thousands of women and children.

Last year, U.S. troops and their partner SDF fighters detained more than 300 IS militants in Syria and killed over 20. An ambush in December by IS militants killed two U.S. soldiers and one American civilian interpreter in Syria.

Chehayeb reported from Beirut.