{"id":4384,"date":"2019-02-01T15:31:16","date_gmt":"2019-02-01T14:31:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/staging.cat-int.org\/?p=4384&#038;lang=en"},"modified":"2019-02-13T15:42:03","modified_gmt":"2019-02-13T14:42:03","slug":"france-to-take-back-isis-fighters-reversing-policy-in-wake-of-u-s-withdrawal-from-syria","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging.cat-int.org\/index.php\/2019\/02\/01\/france-to-take-back-isis-fighters-reversing-policy-in-wake-of-u-s-withdrawal-from-syria\/","title":{"rendered":"France to take back ISIS fighters, reversing policy in wake of U.S. withdrawal from Syria"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Source : <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/world\/europe\/france-to-take-back-isis-fighters-reversing-policy-in-wake-of-us-withdrawal-from-syria\/2019\/02\/01\/5d3de5a8-2648-11e9-b5b4-1d18dfb7b084_story.html\" target=\"_blank\">Washington Post\u00a0<\/a><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>By James McAuley and Michael Birnbaum<\/p>\n<p class=\"text \" data-elm-loc=\"1\"><span class=\"dateline\">PARIS \u2014<\/span>\u00a0France is in discussions about repatriating Islamic State fighters and their families, a policy shift prompted by the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria.<\/p>\n<p data-elm-loc=\"2\">The French government confirmed this past week that French jihadists detained in Syrian camps may be returned to France.<\/p>\n<p data-elm-loc=\"3\">\u201cWe are exploring all options in order to prevent these potentially dangerous individuals from escaping or dispersing,\u201d Jean-Yves Le Drian, France\u2019s foreign minister, told reporters. \u201cIf the forces detaining these French fighters decide to deport them to France, they would be immediately handed over to the judicial authorities.<\/p>\n<p data-elm-loc=\"4\">\u201cThese individuals voluntarily joined a terrorist organization that is fighting in the Levant, has committed attacks in France and is continuing to pose a threat to us.\u201d<\/p>\n<p data-elm-loc=\"5\">The French government wouldn\u2019t confirm how many \u00adpeople may be repatriated, but French media reports, citing government sources, have placed the figure between 120 and 130.<\/p>\n<div id=\"google_ads_iframe_\/701\/wpni.world_4__container__\"><iframe id=\"google_ads_iframe_\/701\/wpni.world_4\" title=\"3rd party ad content\" name=\"google_ads_iframe_\/701\/wpni.world_4\" width=\"300\" height=\"250\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" data-google-container-id=\"d\" data-load-complete=\"true\" data-integralas-id-1569427e-a455-2b53-df35-5e66ebfbaacb=\"\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p data-elm-loc=\"6\">Nicole Belloubet, France\u2019s justice minister, told France\u2019s RTL radio that as many as 75\u00a0percent of those coming back would likely be younger than age 7.<\/p>\n<p data-elm-loc=\"8\">France had earlier agreed to repatriate the children of Islamic State fighters on a case-by-case basis. But the government had been content to leave the incarceration of French jihadists to local authorities, fearing the political consequences of taking back someone who later commits an attack.<\/p>\n<p data-elm-loc=\"9\">The Islamic State\u2019s territory was a beacon for would-be Islamist militants from around the world who wanted to wage war and live according to ultraconservative Islamic precepts. Thousands of people streamed toward Syria, and there was a particularly strong influx from European countries, where citizens could buy budget tourist flights to Turkey and then sneak across the border.<\/p>\n<div id=\"google_ads_iframe_\/701\/wpni.world_6__container__\"><iframe id=\"google_ads_iframe_\/701\/wpni.world_6\" title=\"3rd party ad content\" name=\"google_ads_iframe_\/701\/wpni.world_6\" width=\"300\" height=\"250\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" data-google-container-id=\"i\" data-load-complete=\"true\" data-integralas-id-1efff1b7-2b1f-4502-d9bf-d3e4901baca0=\"\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p data-elm-loc=\"10\">As many as 1,910 French citizens joined the Islamic State, according to statistics from the Soufan Center, a security research institute.<\/p>\n<p data-elm-loc=\"11\">Deciding how to handle citizens who try to return has been a concern for countries throughout Europe. Multiple attacks in Paris, Brussels and elsewhere in 2015 and 2016 were connected to people suspected of having fought for the Islamic State. In France alone, more than 230 people have been killed in Islamic State-linked attacks since 2015.<\/p>\n<p data-elm-loc=\"12\">Many European countries have been\u00a0<a title=\"www.washingtonpost.com\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/graphics\/2018\/world\/syria\/isis-prisoners\/?utm_term=.1b2c8c06f834\">reluctant to take their citizens back<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p data-elm-loc=\"13\">After Melina Boughedir, a 27-year-old French woman who joined the Islamic State in 2015, was caught by Iraqi forces, she stood trial in Iraq with the full support of Paris.<\/p>\n<p data-elm-loc=\"14\">\u201cMadame Boughedir will be judged where her actions took place,\u201d Le Drian said last year. \u201cThis is normal logic.\u201d<\/p>\n<div id=\"google_ads_iframe_\/701\/wpni.world_8__container__\"><iframe id=\"google_ads_iframe_\/701\/wpni.world_8\" title=\"3rd party ad content\" name=\"google_ads_iframe_\/701\/wpni.world_8\" width=\"300\" height=\"250\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" data-google-container-id=\"n\" data-load-complete=\"true\" data-integralas-id-3e10897d-e7b6-7141-83af-8529b77fce5b=\"\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p data-elm-loc=\"15\">The\u00a0<a title=\"www.washingtonpost.com\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/world\/middle_east\/us-military-announces-start-of-syria-troop-withdrawal\/2019\/01\/11\/77455bda-1585-11e9-90a8-136fa44b80ba_story.html?utm_term=.b1ea5e96d73d\">U.S. withdrawal from Syria<\/a>\u00a0has started to change the calculation, since it increases the risk that former fighters could escape from detention, or that spouses and children could be killed in renewed fighting or traded to the government of Bashar al-Assad to serve effectively as hostages.<\/p>\n<p data-elm-loc=\"16\">Le Drian suggested this past week that future trials would conceivably continue for those detained in Iraq. What makes Syria different, he explained, is the mounting political instability.<\/p>\n<p data-elm-loc=\"17\">\u201cIn Syria, the situation is more complicated: A portion of the territory is still at war, in the northeast, and the announcement of the American withdrawal may result in the dispersion of these terrorists,\u201d he said. \u201cWe are therefore preparing for all eventualities in the northeast, including the possibility of an expulsion.\u201d<\/p>\n<div id=\"google_ads_iframe_\/701\/wpni.world_10__container__\"><iframe id=\"google_ads_iframe_\/701\/wpni.world_10\" title=\"3rd party ad content\" name=\"google_ads_iframe_\/701\/wpni.world_10\" width=\"300\" height=\"250\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" data-google-container-id=\"r\" data-load-complete=\"true\" data-integralas-id-a38a674d-ca98-43a0-f2f8-c7fae5dda212=\"\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p data-elm-loc=\"18\">But security analysts see no other option.<\/p>\n<p data-elm-loc=\"19\">\u201cWe\u2019ve experienced that Syrian Kurds were not organized in such a way that they could put our citizens on trial. It\u2019s a very embryonic organization,\u201d Jean-Charles Brisard, the director of the French Center for the Analysis of Terrorism, said in an interview. \u201cThey don\u2019t have judicial institutions to formally put these individuals on trial, at least in a proper way.\u201d<\/p>\n<p data-elm-loc=\"20\">The U.S. withdrawal, he added, further complicated matters. \u201cUnder these circumstances, we have no other way,\u201d Brisard said. \u201cThe decision has been imposed on us on the ground.<\/p>\n<p data-elm-loc=\"21\">\u201cWe have no other option [but] to transfer them to France to be sure that they won\u2019t escape. The main risk is that they will disseminate in the region and plot again elsewhere.\u201d<\/p>\n<p data-elm-loc=\"22\">Gilles Kepel, a French scholar of radicalization, underscored the difficulties of repatriation, especially given that French prisons in recent years have often functioned as laboratories of radicalization.<\/p>\n<p data-elm-loc=\"23\">\u201cToday, we already have several hundred jihadists in prison, and we do not really know what to do about it,\u201d he said Friday on France\u2019s Europe 1 radio.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Source : Washington Post\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[62,83],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.cat-int.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4384"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.cat-int.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.cat-int.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.cat-int.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.cat-int.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4384"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/staging.cat-int.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4384\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4385,"href":"https:\/\/staging.cat-int.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4384\/revisions\/4385"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.cat-int.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.cat-int.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.cat-int.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}