Turkey begins deportation of ISIS terrorists

Moaaz Mohamed

Europe will be in real danger as Turkey said it would begin to send ISIS militants back to their home countries as of Nov. 11.

Turkey’s Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said on Nov. 8 that Ankara would begin to send ISIS militants back to their home countries from Monday.

Soylu said Turkey was holding almost 1,200 foreign members of Isis in custody and had captured a further 287, including women and children, during its recent invasion of northern Syria.

Turkey did not say which countries it would deport ISIS militants to, but Iraqi Foreign Minister Mohammed Ali al-Hakim said the ISIS deportees belong to 72 countries.

Ankara says it holds around 1,200 ISIS militants, in addition to 270 others, who were detained during its military operations in northern Syria.
Meanwhile, the French intelligence has warned against the deportation of ISIS foreign fighters and their families.

Earlier, Al-Azhar Observatory said ISIS had recruited around 460 French children.

German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer has set conditions for the return of ISIS detainees and their families to Berlin. The stipulations include identity of these nationals and that there would be no danger from their return.

On Nov. 7, Russia’s security service chief, Alexander Bortnikov, said there are about some 2,000 women and children who could return and commit attacks.

“Currently there are around 2,000 women and children on whom we have data who are relatives of fighters, that’s just Russian nationals,” Bortnikov said.

On October 9, Turkey began a military operation in northern Syria to force what it claimed to be a safe zone. The operation has resulted in the evacuation of Kurds as well as the killing and wounding of many members of the Syrian Democratic Forces.