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What ISIS Detainees Are Telling Us About The Future

  • As part of its stated intention to transfer responsibility for counter-ISIS operations to the Syrian transitional government, the United States has moved 5,700 ISIS detainees into Iraqi custody from prisons in Syria.
  • The withdrawal of a permanent US security presence in the region, and its reduced (if not curtailed) leadership role in the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS, will compromise the world’s ability to respond to a resurgent ISIS in an already fragile Middle East.
  • Many of the detainees transferred by the United States are third-country nationals. And there are also about 43,000 ISIS-linked non-combatants, mainly women and children, still in Syria. Most known Canadian women and children have been repatriated.
  • Calls by regional governments and international humanitarian organizations to repatriate their nationals have met stiff resistance, especially in Canada. All ISIS-linked detainees, whatever their role in the group, represent serious and enduring security threats.

A Prisoner Transfer

In January and February 2026, US forces in Syria moved about 5,700 Islamic State (ISIS) detainees out of prisons and camps in northeast Syria and into “strict, regular detention centers” in Iraq. The ISIS detainees, including about 1,000 foreigners, had been held by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which has been engaged in an on again / off again conflict with the Syrian transitional government (STG) since the fall of the Assad regime in late 2024.

And A Transfer of Power

The detainee transfer coincides with a January 2026 Syrian government offensive against the SDF, which saw government forces push the SDF out of several of its strongholds, including the city of Raqqa (from 2014 – 2017, the “capital” of the Islamic State). While this latest development has ended in a tentative ceasefire, during the fighting 120 ISIS detainees managed to escape from a prison in the city of al-Shaddadah. The city is also home to a US military base, which is a component of the American commitment to the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS (“the Coalition”). However, the base, along with several others in the region, is being handed over to the STG.  

ISIS Resurgent…America, Not So Much

The US detainee transfer is more than just an exercise in logistics. Along with the handover of the al-Shaddadah military base, it is a precursor to a large-scale withdrawal – announced by President Trump last year – of US troops and equipment from the region. It likely also signals US intention to wind down its participation in the Coalition, of which it has been a mainstay. 

This would certainly be in keeping with the larger US strategy of “disentanglement” from a host of multilateral alliances. But without the support of the United States, it remains to be seen whether countries like Syria and Iraq will be able to deal effectively with an ISIS that currently appears to be enjoying a resurgence in the region. Indeed, any US drawdown may be just the incentive that ISIS needs to go back on the offensive, especially if its ranks are augmented by fighters and militants who have escaped or been released from custody. The first time around, ISIS inflicted years of agony on a somewhat more stable Middle East. In today’s environment, the effects would be far more devastating, regionally and internationally.

Detainees…Not Just ISIS Terrorists

In 2025, the US State Department reported that almost 9,000 ISIS detainees were being held in SDF facilities. Beyond this, more than 43,000 non-combatants with suspected ties to ISIS militants, from over 70 countries-of-origin, are being held in displaced persons (DP) camps across the region. Of these, about 25,000 are children under the age of 12 (the federal government repatriated 19 Canadian women and children from Syrian DP camps in 2023). At al-Hol, the best known and most notorious of the DP camps, most of the 24,000 inmates fled the camp as STG forces advanced and the SDF retreated. Their whereabouts are unknown.

Who’s In Charge?

There is a lot to unpack here. While the United States has been at pains to characterize the conflict between Syrian and SDF forces as under control, and to emphasize the STG’s assumption of “national leadership of counter-ISIS efforts,” the situation in northeast Syria is highly kinetic, if not anarchic. So, the decision to move thousands of ISIS detainees into Iraqi custody may indicate that the United States does not fully trust the ability, or perhaps even the willingness, of the STG to maintain control over incarcerated ISIS members.

Somebody Else’s Trouble?

Mass prisoner transfer is also a solution to a vexing problem: what to do with thousands of presumably unrepentant and unreconstructed ISIS detainees. Once they are in Iraq, they are no longer a Syrian, or an American, problem. 

Perhaps not surprisingly, given its own experience of ISIS, Iraq is not known for its gentle treatment of detainees linked to the group. Human Rights Watch reports that after Iraq retook ISIS-held territory in 2018 and 2019, hundreds, if not thousands, of suspected ISIS terrorists were sentenced to death in drumhead trials. The Iraqi justice system continues to rely on torture, secret informants and denial of due process, so it is probable that many, if not most, of the ISIS transferees are destined simply to disappear.

Duty of Care?

Whatever the probable fate of Iraqi and Syrian detainees in the Iraqi justice system, Iraq is currently calling on third party nations to repatriate their citizens and prosecute them at home. Globally, this is a highly fraught issue. Here in Canada, human rights advocates and activists are adamant that the government of Canada has an absolute duty of care: Canadian detainees in Syria and Iraq – especially any remaining women and children – should be repatriated and the Canadian justice system should deal with any who are responsible for terrorism-related or other crimes.

Lying In the Bed You Made

In Australia, meanwhile, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese stated unequivocally that his government would not repatriate Australian citizens detained in Iraq or Syria for links to ISIS. Indeed, a group of Australian “ISIS wives” and children who were released from a Syrian DP camp on 16 February, were forced to return to the camp, apparently because Australia refused to take them. “If you make your bed,” said Mr. Albanese, when questioned about the matter, “you lie in it.” Rightly or wrongly, this probably reflects the views of many, if not most, Canadians.  

Why Is This Important?

Despite a (not unjustified) preoccupation with the threat from right wing political violence, current events in Syria are a reminder that enduring threats – like ISIS – are still with us and still have the potential to cause great harm. As discussed in previous CIBs dealing with Syria, ISIS and other Islamist groups remain significant destabilizing factors throughout the world, requiring high level awareness of threat and risk for Canadians and Canadian interests (including companies and NGOs) operating abroad. Here at home, Canadian intelligence and law enforcement agencies have disrupted multiple ISIS-inspired terrorist plots since the group’s supposed “defeat” in 2019. These include Ahmed and Mostafa Eldidi’s planned “serious, violent” attack Jewish targets in Toronto. Ahmed Eldidi has also been charged with war crimes for his role in the dismemberment of a prisoner of ISIS in 2015. And the two men who murdered 15 people, most of them Jewish, at a Chanukah celebration at Australia’s Bondi Beach in December 2025, were both adherents to ISIS ideology.  

The withdrawal of a permanent US security presence in the region, and its reduced (if not curtailed) leadership role in the Coalition, will compromise the ability of Canada and its allies to respond to a resurgent ISIS. More generally, it is a stark reminder that many global security initiatives will be affected by the new US isolationism. Canada, and other powers, will increasingly find themselves forced to engage in “crisis triage,” deciding what crises we can address, and what crises we must ignore. Given the differential between, say, a potentially existential threat like Russia and a merely enduring threat like ISIS, it is not difficult to see the choices that may have to be made, and their potential consequences. 

 The fate of Canadians and other third-country nationals – including the wives and children of ISIS members – languishing in Syrian and Iraqi captivity or semi-captivity is not going away. One possible solution would be to hand them over to an international tribunal and to allow justice to take its course. Without a meaningful global consensus and will for international action (as with the establishment of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia), this is unlikely, however. 

However compelling the humanitarian argument for repatriation of ISIS-linked women and children (at least, any remaining Canadians who can still be located), there is probably no more effective crucible of radicalization than a DP camp in northeast Syria. There are real security risks associated with all ISIS-linked Syrian detainees, not just the ones who participated directly in ISIS operations. The costs associated with resettling, investigating and monitoring returnees, quite possibly for the rest of their natural lives, would be both enormous and, again, a source of deep controversy for most Canadians.