BEIRUT — Kurdish authorities in northern Syria have transferred eight U.S. women and children who were captured with the Islamic State group back to America, Kurdish officials said Wednesday.
Abdulkarim Omar, a senior official in the Kurdish self-rule administration, said the group includes two women and six children. He said they were returned at the request of the U.S. government and based on their own desire to return "without any pressure or coercion."
Omar didn't identify the women and children involved, and there was no immediate confirmation or comment from U.S. officials. It was not clear when they left Syria, who they were handed over to, or where in the U.S. they will be taken. It is the second such repatriation of U.S. nationals from Syria. Earlier this year, a woman and four children were returned to the U.S.
RELATED
The U.S-backed Syrian fighters who drove the Islamic State from its last strongholds called Monday for an international tribunal to prosecute hundreds of foreigners rounded up in the nearly five-year campaign against the extremist group.
Since the Islamic State group’s territorial defeat in Syria and Iraq, the issue of which authorities should prosecute ISIS foreign fighters and what to do with the families they left behind has become a priority. Thousands of ISIS members and their families are in camps and detention centers in northern Syria, including around 74,000 people who are being sheltered at al-Hol camp in Hasakeh province.
Thousands of others are caught in Iraq's judicial system, awaiting trial.
Many Western nations have refused to repatriate their nationals, citing security concerns. Others, however, have been taking back their nationals on case by case basis.
On Monday, Kurdish authorities handed over to a Norwegian envoy five orphans of ISIS members who were killed in Syria. Last week, Iraq handed over to Turkey 188 Turkish children of suspected ISIS members.
Omar said only “humanitarian cases” are currently being repatriated, adding that any fighters or women accused of working with the Islamic State will remain in detention, pending trial. Kurdish authorities, who drove the Islamic State group from its last strongholds in Syria, have called for setting up an international tribunal to prosecute hundreds of foreigners rounded up in the five-year campaign against the extremist group.
A group of international defense chiefs convened by U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to coordinate military aid for Ukraine is likely to be larger when it meets for the second time on Monday.
The U.S. military commands responsible for North America misused at least $19 million in COVID-19 relief money on space-related data analytics connected to the Pentagon’s JADC2 endeavor, as well as office information technology upgrades, investigators said.
It is one of several critical technologies that Heidi Shyu, the undersecretary of defense for research and engineering, included in remarks at SOFIC.
The U.S. is sending Ukraine another $100 million in military assistance, including heavy artillery and counter-artillery radars, the Biden administration announced Thursday.
Currently the VA inspector general cannot force former employees to detail problems or crimes they saw during their tenure at the department.
The teams use focus groups and on-the-ground interviews to dig deeper than traditional climate surveys.
Wesley Goode died earlier this month in Gulfport, Mississippi.
Putin charged that “an outright aggression has been unleashed against Russia, a war has been waged in the information space.”
Cmdr. Brett Johnson has been temporarily reassigned to the staff of Helicopter Sea Combat Wing Atlantic.
CTF-150 is one of four task forces now operating in the Mideast to counter maritime threats.
Dr. Lewis M. Duncan, who was put on leave following the 2020 incident, has since retired from the post-graduate college.
The 1960s-era design continues to transform.
“In the last 60 years, we’ve really focuses on isolated individuals,” but during large-scale maneuver warfare, units can become isolated just “by battlefield geometry," the Army's SERE school commander said.
The more the Navy experiments with unmanned systems, the more it's learning what it needs — and what it doesn't.
West Point has so far not disclosed what punishments the cadets are facing.
Load More