ISIS file in Syria remains unresolved amid Security Council negligence

The regions of North and East Syria and the institutions of the Autonomous Administration are witnessing intensive visits by foreign delegations, almost daily, the last of which was a Belgian government delegation, and another Danish, and the meetings are permanently focused on the ISIS file, based on the media reports published about those visits, without any reaching a solution.

The ISIS file, the detained mercenaries on the one hand and their families detained in the camps on the other, is a thorny file for the Autonomous Administration, and a real threat to the future of the region and the world, as a result of the takfirist ideology the mercenaries and their families hold, while international support for the trial of these mercenaries is absent.

The meetings that take place between the Autonomous Administration institutions and foreign delegations are limited to al-Hol and Roj camps only, and the fate of the children of their citizens, without addressing the ways to resolve the ISIS detainees file. On the other hand, the Autonomous Administration insists that the ISIS problem is an international problem that must be solved within an international framework.

Foreign delegations are avoiding discussing the future of the ISIS file.

The Autonomous Administration detains in two camps “Al-Hol and Roj” more than 30,000 families of ISIS mercenaries, Syrians, Iraqis, and foreigners, most of them children and women, including 8,555 children and women, distributed among 2,529 foreign families.

In addition to the families of ISIS mercenaries in the detention camps, the Syrian Democratic Forces hold more than 19,000 mercenaries, who were arrested during the SDF's military campaigns against ISIS.

The data indicate that foreign countries are not bent on evacuating their nationals, or pushing for their trial, or finding a solution to the pending file, because the visits are limited to recovering the children.

 In 2019, the Autonomous Administration delivered 170 women and 175 children.

Besides, during the year 2021, the Autonomous Administration handed over 34 women and 239 children, of Muslim nationalities belonging to different foreign countries, and Russia and Uzbekistan topped the list of countries with the most evacuation of their citizens, due to the large numbers of citizens of these two countries who are involved in the ranks of ISIS.

Despite repeated calls for the Autonomous Administration to establish international courts to prosecute mercenaries and hold them accountable in their regions under an international umbrella, starting on March 25, 2019, that is, two days after the Syrian Democratic Forces announced that ISIS mercenaries had been defeated geographically, this file remains pending and shrouded in ambiguity.

The international community’s fear of its interests with some of the regional powers neighboring Syria, foremost of which is Turkey, which rejects any effort and support for the Autonomous Administration on the other hand, is one of the obstacles facing such kind of efforts to move towards resolving this file with the Autonomous Administration.

The international community’s reluctance to resolve the ISIS file, and support for the Autonomous Administration in establishing an international court in light of its refusal to evacuate its citizens from the region, is also due to the lack of intention to internationalize this issue in the Security Council, the body that can adopt such kind of courts and proposals.

The UN Security Council is able to take this type of decision regarding this file, and to establish an international court in the Autonomous Administration regions under Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter, which binds everyone to its decisions and imposes its judicial powers on all states, to push for the establishment of an international court whose decisions and rulings everyone commits to. It had also previously established the International Criminal Court in Yugoslavia in 1993, and the International Criminal Court in Rwanda in 1994.

Chapter Seven of the United Nations Charter gives the Security Council the right to act and take measures at any time it deems necessary to take measures to maintain international peace and security and restore it to its rightful place.

J.O

ANHA