Bosnia Plans Captured ISIS Fighters’ Return from Syria

After the territory held by so-called Islamic State was reduced to little more than a square kilometre, fighters’ wives and children who surrendered and are living in refugee camps run by Kurdish forces or Syrian Defence Forces units are now awaiting a final decision on whether they will be sent back to their homeland, Bosnian officials have said.

Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Security Minister Dragan Mektic told BIRN that “negotiations are underway” about whether Bosnian citizens who are now in Syria can be returned.

“There are a certain number of Bosnian citizens who we are obliged to accept… We are working on it, we are checking their identities, we are communicating with competent bodies in Syria,” Dragan said.

The US has said that hundreds of European-born jihadis who travelled to Syria to fight for ISIS should be sent back and tried. It is so far unclear if any of them are Bosnian citizens.

Since 2012, around 200 men and 70 women left Bosnia and Herzegovina for ISIS-controlled territory in Syria and Iraq.

State Investigation and Protection Agency, SIPA data indicates that a total of around 60 children were taken with them.

“According to unverified findings available to SIPA, around 70 children to whom one or both parents are Bosnian citizens were born in Syria and Iraq,” SIPA told BIRN.

SIPA also believes that 12 children of Bosnian citizens were killed in Syria.

Mektic explained that identification of people in the field represents a big challenge, saying that Bosnia and Herzegovina “will not be able to accept any individuals unless it has been previously determined with certainty that they have our citizenship”.

Kurdish forces have appealed to European countries for months to take responsibility for their citizens who are in camps in Syria.

The issue drew global media attention when US President Donald Trump said on Saturday that European countries must take back around 800 captured ISIS fighters who are currently in detention in Syria.

“The alternative is not a good one in that we will be forced to release them, Trump said, warning that this would cause a security threat in Europe.

Radio Free Europe published a letter this week from three female Bosnian citizens who are currently in a Kurdish-run camp, calling on the Bosnian authorities to help them go back home.

“We are asking you, in our name and in that of our innocent children, to take us back and offer us a second chance for a new life, at least for the sake of our underage, innocent children,” they said in the letter.

Marcel van der Steen, a correspondent from Netherlands Public Broadcasting who visited the area around the city of Deir ez-Zur near the Kurdish-run camps in Syria last week, said that mainly international fighters remained on ISIS-controlled territory as the Islamist militant group stages its last stand.

“They are ready to get killed for their beliefs. They believe in Islamic State. The Kurds told me they often used civilians, women and children as human shields,” van der Steen told BIRN.

So far 23 people have been sentenced, under second-instance verdicts, to a total of 42 years and eight months in prison in 14 different cases for travelling to the Syrian battlefield, attempting to go there or recruiting others to fight.

Another trial is still ongoing, while the beginning of a trial in a further case is awaited.

The return of Bosnian ISIS recruits from Syrian detention will be dealt with by a special coordination body under Foreign Ministry auspices, although no former fighters, their wives or children have yet been sent back.

Mektic insisted that anyone who is returned will be properly checked.

“We cannot refuse our citizens the right to come back, but all those who we accept will be processed,” Mektic said.