BAGHOUZ (Syria), March 25 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Dozens of Daesh group extremists emerged from tunnels to surrender to US-backed forces in eastern Syria on Sunday, a day after their “caliphate” was declared defeated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Syria’s Kurds warned that despite the demise of the proto-state, the thousands of foreign jihadists they have detained are a time-bomb the world urgently needs to defuse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dozens of people –\u00a0mostly men –\u00a0file out of the battered jihadist encampment in the remote village of Baghouz near the Iraqi border to board pickup trucks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“They are fighters who came out of tunnels and surrendered today,” Kurdish spokesman Jiaker Amed said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Some sported thick beards and wore long woollen kaftans over their dark-coloured robes, or a chequered scarf around their faces, as they trudged out of their final hideout under the drizzle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
World leaders were quick to hail Saturday’s announcement by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces that the last shred of land controlled by Daesh in Syria had been conquered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The SDF is continuing to carry out operations to rout out any remaining jihadists in the area and uncover possible weapons caches.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to the SDF, 66,000 people left the last pocket since January, including 5,000 militants and 24,000 of their relatives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The assault was paused multiple times as the force allowed people to evacuate from the enclave on the banks of the Euphrates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The SDF have screened droves of people scrambling out of Baghouz in recent weeks, detaining suspected militants and trucking civilians and Daesh relatives to camps further north.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Most relatives have been crammed into the Al-Hol camp, a facility built for 20,000 people but which now shelters 72,000.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Kurdish administration in northeastern Syria has warned it does not have capacity to detain so many people, let alone put them on trial.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But the home countries of suspected IS members are reluctant to take them back, due to potential security risks and the likely public backlash.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Several held in Syria have been stripped of their citizenship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The conflict in Syria has killed more than 370,000 people since it erupted eight years ago, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor says. — NNN-AGENCIES<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
BAGHOUZ (Syria), March 25 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Dozens of Daesh group extremists emerged from tunnels to surrender to US-backed forces in eastern Syria on Sunday, a day after their “caliphate” was declared defeated. Syria’s Kurds warned that despite the demise of the proto-state, the thousands of foreign jihadists they have detained are a time-bomb the world […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[217],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16112"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16112"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16112\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}