According to officials, the Biden administration has repatriated a family of 10 American citizens trapped for years in desert camps and detention centers in Syria by Kurdish-led militias fighting the Muslim-run country.
The government also brought to the United States a pair of half-siblings – only one of whom, believed to be 7 years old, was an American citizen. The resettlement of the remaining boy, believed to be 9 years old, is the first time the United States has taken in a person from a war zone who is not an American citizen.
The government announced the transfer early Tuesday in a statement from Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken, who said there had been a “complex repatriation and resettlement” involving 11 American citizens, Five of them were minors and “one was a 9-year-old child.” non-U.S. citizen sibling of one of the U.S. citizen minors.”
He added, “This is the largest repatriation of American citizens from northeastern Syria to date.”
The statement announcing the transfer did not identify the 12 people. But two unnamed officials said the 10 people were a family. reported in Septemberincludes a woman named Brandy Salman and her nine American-born children, ranging from about 6 to about 25 years old.
Officials said the other two were the sons – one biological and one adopted – of a man named Abdelhamid Al-Madioum, who was repatriated in 2020 and pleaded guilty to supporting terrorism. The Star Tribune of Minneapolis reported this month that his two young sons had been found and would soon go to Minnesota to be raised by their parents.
Then on Tuesday, charges against one of Ms. Salman’s daughters, Halima Salman, now about 24 years old, were sealed. She allegedly received weapons training from a foreign terrorist organization.
The fallout from the collapse of the ISIS caliphate – which continued to carry out terrorist attacks after losing control of its former territory – has led to a thorny problem in northeastern Syria, where tens of thousands who are still being held in government custody. Kurdish-led militia, the Syrian Democratic Forces.
About 45,000 people are living in refugee camps – mainly women and children. They include about 17,000 Syrians, about 18,750 Iraqis and about 9,000 “third-country nationals” from more than 60 countries, officials said. The militia is also holding about 8,800 adult men in wartime prisons.
Most of the adult men are suspected of joining the Islamic State, including some who traveled to Syria or Iraq from Europe. Some brought their families.
The United States has encouraged other countries to take back their citizens – prosecuting them where appropriate – and in some cases providing military logistical assistance. The same transfer operation that sent dozens of people to the United States also returned six Canadian citizens, four Dutch citizens and one Finnish citizen, Blinken said. Among them were eight children.
Since 2016, when the IS caliphate began to collapse, the United States has repatriated 51 American citizens – 30 children and 21 adults, according to the State Department. That number includes the 11 citizens brought in early Tuesday.
Many countries – especially in Europe – have been reluctant to allow the repatriation of their citizens, especially men, because of concerns that they pose a security threat. Some fear that under their legal system, any prison sentence for joining the Islamic State would last only a few years.
The Times reported last fall that Ms. Salman’s husband, who was from Türkiye, apparently took the family into IS territory in 2016 and was later killed. Officials said most of the family will now live with her mother in New Hampshire and that the Department of Health and Human Services, working with local social service agencies, has developed a plan to help them reconcile. integrate into society.
However, one of Ms. Salman’s daughters, Halima, is facing prosecution. in one criminal complaint unsealed on Tuesday, prosecutors cited a series of evidence accusing her of receiving weapons training. That includes numerous photos and other electronic files on a cellphone the government recovered in Syria in 2019 and that belonged to a man they said she married there. . She was arrested when the military plane carrying the group landed at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York early Tuesday morning, an official said.
In 2022 and 2023, Human Rights Watch and United Nations investigators separately interviewed one of Ms. Salman’s sons, now about 18 years old.
He then lived separately from the rest of his family in what the Kurdish militia described as a rehabilitation or de-radicalization center for youth. He told investigators that guards took him there in early 2020 as part of a controversial policy to remove boys from the main displacement camps, Al Hol and Roj, when they enter puberty.
The teenager told investigators that his father tricked the family into going to Syria – telling them they would go camping while in Turkey and only later revealing that they had crossed the border – and that his mother he mostly kept the children in the house because she was afraid. The Times could not verify the details of that account.
The UN investigator also said the teenager expressed “extreme distress and anxiety” about being unable to communicate meaningfully with his mother, and showed the investigator pictures paintings and drawings depict them together. She also talked about burgers and the lack of rap music, she said.
Human Rights Watch also included an image of the teenager – masked and using a pseudonym – in video about children stranded in Syria after their parents took them there to join IS. In it, he said: “It’s not just me. We have a lot of kids, you know. No one wants to stay, it’s like growing up here doing nothing. That’s what we all feel.”
In the case of two half-brothers, one apply to court from the prosecution of their father, Mr. Al-Madioum, said that in 2015, while he was a university student and visiting Morocco with his family, he fled to join ISIS.
He eventually married the widow of a slain ISIS fighter and he himself fought in battle and was seriously injured, including losing part of his arm. He surrendered to the Kurdish-led militia in March 2019 and was returned to the United States for prosecution in 2020.
A court filing also mentions that he was with “his two young children” at the time he surrendered to the militia. However, officials clarified that among the boys were only Mr. Al-Madioum’s biological children. Mr. Al-Madioum apparently adopted the other boy when he married their mother, the widow, who was later apparently killed.
There are many challenges in moving people out. Kurdish militias do not have comprehensive and accurate records of all the people they are detaining, and the mixed origins of many of the children make efforts to convince host countries even more difficult. more complex.
Ian Moss, the State Department’s deputy counterterrorism coordinator, said in an interview that by admitting the 9-year-old boy was not an American citizen but had a connection to the country through his older brother, The United States is looking to lead by example.
“It is important for the purpose of reintegration that we do not separate families,” he said. “And as we continue to work to solve this problem, we need to think creatively about how to preserve family units. Inevitably, that means that — just as the United States has done — countries will need to provide resettlement services to individuals who are not their citizens.”
There have been a number of movements in recent years. In 2022, nearly 3,000 displaced people were repatriated – or, in the case of Syrians, returned to their home communities within the country – more than the number who left the custody of the militias from 2019 to 2021 combined. In 2023, more than 5,400 people were repatriated or returned to their home communities.
“As governments move to repatriate their citizens, we call for thoughtfulness and flexibility to ensure to the greatest extent possible that family units remain intact,” Blinken said.
He added: “The only lasting solution to the humanitarian and security crisis in camps and detention facilities for displaced persons in northeast Syria is for countries to repatriate, rehabilitate, reintegrate and Where appropriate, ensure accountability for wrongdoing.”
