Iraq holding 1,400 foreign wives, children of suspected ISIL fighters

MOSUL – Reuters

Iraqi authorities are holding 1,400 foreign wives and children of suspected Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) militants in a camp after government forces expelled the jihadist group from one of its last remaining strongholds in Iraq, security and aid officials said.

Many of them say they are from Russia, Turkey and Central Asia, but there are also some from European countries, the officials said. They have mostly arrived at the camp south of Mosul since Aug. 30.

An Iraqi intelligence officer said that they were in the process of verifying their nationalities with their home countries, since many of the women no longer had their original documents.

It is the largest group of foreigners linked to Islamic State to be held by Iraqi forces since they started expelling the militants from Mosul and other areas in northern Iraq last year, an aid official said. Thousands of foreigners have been fighting for Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. A senior security officer said the authorities were trying to find a safe place to house the families while negotiating with embassies for their return home. They are not allowed to leave the camp.

Reuters reporters saw hundreds of the women and children sitting on mattresses crawling with bugs in tents in what aid workers called a “militarized site.” Turkish, French and Russian were among the languages spoken. 

“I want to go back [to France] but don’t know how,” said a French-speaking veiled woman of Chechen origin who said she had lived in Paris before.

She said she did not know what had happened to her husband, who had brought her to Iraq when he joined ISIL.

The security officer said the women and children had mostly surrendered to the Kurdish Peshmerga near the northern city of Tal Afar, along with their husbands. The Kurds handed the women and children over to Iraqi forces, but kept the men - all presumed to be fighters - in their custody. 

Many of the families had fled to Tal Afar after Iraqi troops pushed ISIL out of Mosul on Aug. 30.

Iraqi forces retook Tal Afar, a city of predominantly ethnic Turkmen that has produced some of ISIL’s most senior commanders, last month. Most of its pre-war population of 200,000 have fled.