Who Gets Blamed if ISIS Fighters Come Back?
by Con Coughlin • October 18, 2019 at 5:00 am
US President Donald Trump personally made a number of appeals to European leaders requesting they do more to take responsibility for their ISIS-affiliated nationals... the Europeans refused to budge, arguing that having them return home would increase the risk of Islamist-inspired acts of terrorism....
There is now the very real prospect that ISIS, which only a year ago had suffered a catastrophic defeat with the destruction of its so-called caliphate, will be able to regroup as hordes of liberated fighters from Europe and elsewhere rejoin its ranks.
If that happens, and ISIS succeeds in launching a new wave of terror attacks against Western targets, European leaders will have only themselves to blame for failing to accept responsibility for the actions of their citizens, no matter how reprehensible they might be.
Ever since the US-led coalition succeeded in destroying most of ISIS in Syria, one vital issue has left been unresolved, namely: what to do with the thousands of ISIS fighters who were taken prisoner and confined to Kurdish-run detention centres.
The problem is particularly acute with regard to the estimated 2,500 foreign fighters -- the majority of them holding European passports -- and their dependents who abandoned their home countries for fight for ISIS.
Given the depth of their betrayal -- turning their backs on nations where they have been raised and nurtured to join the barbarians of ISIS -- it is quite understandable that Western governments should recoil in horror when defeated ISIS fighters and their associates then announce they want to return home.
