ISIS suspects transferred from Syria to Iraq are being interrogated in a Baghdad prison

Baghdad — Inside a high-security detention center in Baghdad, men from Dozens of different countries and nationalities They were brought one by one to interrogation rooms and interrogated by Iraqi officers.

The prisoners are suspected to be members of the militants Islamic State group newly He was transferred from Syria to Iraq in Baghdad request – a move welcomed by the US-led coalition that has fought for years against ISIS.

Over several weeks, the US military escorted more than 5,000 ISIS detainees of 60 different nationalities from prisons in northeastern Syria run by the US-backed, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces. Syrian Democratic Forcesto Baghdad.

The transfers helped allay fears that fighting in Syria would allow ISIS prisoners to escape detention camps there and join militant sleeper cells that to this day are capable of launching attacks in both Iraq and Syria.

On Thursday, The Associated Press was granted rare access to the sprawling detention center in western Baghdad — now known as Karkh Central Prison but more widely known as Camp Cooper after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion that toppled Iraq. Saddam Hussein – Where the men are interrogated.

Iraq is looking forward to Bring to trial Some of the thousands of ISIS detainees Who have been detained for years in Syria without being charged or accessing the justice system.

Iraqi judge Ali Hussein Jafat, who heads the investigation committee into ISIS detainees brought from Syria, says the matter is not easy due to the huge numbers of prisoners involved.

He added that the matter is “complicated and not easy at all,” adding that the detainees belong to 14 Arab countries and 46 other countries.

He added that many detainees suffer from respiratory diseases, so a medical center was established to treat them.

To make room for new arrivals from Syria, thousands of prisoners long held in Karkh were transferred to other prisons in Iraq.

The interrogations are usually intermittent – the men are brought in in batches, handcuffed, dressed in yellow or brown uniforms and wearing medical masks, and taken down a long corridor with rooms on either side.

They are then taken one by one to interrogation rooms, where they sit in a chair while the officer takes down their information. From behind a small window, the AP could observe the interrogation but could not discern the questions or answers of the detainees. It was not clear whether the prisoners were subjected to coercion.

Some prisoners are transferred to the medical center for examinations.

New Syrian government forces that ousted it in December 2024 Strong man Bashar al-Assad The Syrian Democratic Forces launched an offensive in January, seizing large swaths of territory from the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces.

A ceasefire was later reached, ending the fighting and the SDF withdrew as part of the agreement.

At that time, the United States announced that many approx 9000 detainees Detainees in more than a dozen Syrian detention centers will be transferred to Iraq.

To date, 5,383 people suspected of belonging to ISIS have been brought to Iraq. The final batch is expected to arrive on Sunday, Gavat said.

When the Islamic State declared a caliphate — a self-declared region under a traditional form of Islamic rule — over large parts of Syria and Iraq that the militant group seized in 2014, it attracted extremists from around the world.

From the Caliphate, extremists planned attacks around the world that left hundreds dead from Europe to Arab countries and Asia.

The group also carried out atrocities in Syria and Iraq, including enslaving thousands of people Yazidi women and girls Who were captured when militants invaded northern Iraq. Strict rules were implemented, with ISIS beheading its opponents, amputating the hands of thieves, and stoning to death women accused of adultery.

Over the years, an international campaign launched by the US-led coalition defeated ISIS in Iraq in 2017 and in Syria in 2019.

“Some of them are very dangerous,” Javat said of the detainees.

He added that he has so far met with detainees from Australia, Canada, Turkey, Germany, Britain and the former Soviet Union. He said that among them was one Israeli Arab man.

Many countries do not want the return of militants who are their citizens, and Javat said it was too early to say whether the detainees could be extradited or returned to their countries of origin.

He added that those who committed crimes in Iraq will be tried in Iraq and the procedures will be public.