US begins transferring ISIS detainees from Syria to Iraq amid security transition

U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) said connected Wednesday it has begun moving ISIS detainees from northeastern Syria to Iraqi-controlled facilities arsenic portion of a broader effort to forestall the panic group's resurgence and support semipermanent information successful the region.

CENTCOM said U.S. forces transported 150 ISIS fighters who were being held astatine a detention installation successful Hasakah, Syria, to a unafraid determination successful Iraq, with up to 7,000 detainees perchance slated for transfer.

"We are intimately coordinating with determination partners, including the Iraqi government, and we sincerely admit their relation successful ensuring the enduring decision of ISIS," said CENTCOM commandant Adm. Brad Cooper. "Facilitating the orderly and unafraid transportation of ISIS detainees is captious to preventing a breakout that would airs a nonstop menace to the United States and determination security."

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A presumption of al-Hol camp, wherever families linked to the Islamic State radical are being held, successful Hasakah province, Syria, Wednesday, Jan. 21, 2026. (Izz Aldien Alqasem/Anadolu via Getty Images)

The announcement comes 1 time aft U.S. Ambassador to Turkey and peculiar envoy for Syria Tom Barrack said Damascus is prepared to presume information responsibilities, including power of ISIS detention facilities and camps.

The State Department said successful a 2025 study to Congress that astir 8,400 ISIS-affiliated detainees from much than 70 countries are being held successful detention facilities tally by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the largest of which is the al-Hol camp.

Barrack helped broker a fragile four-day ceasefire statement Tuesday betwixt the caller interim Syrian government, led by Ahmed al-Sharaa, and the Kurdish-led SDF, aft escalating clashes threatened to spiral further.

The U.S. authoritative said the Trump medication does not question a semipermanent subject beingness successful Syria, emphasizing the request alternatively for a continued absorption connected defeating remaining ISIS elements.

Syrian President Ahmed Sharaa meets with U.S. Special Envoy for Syria Thomas Barrack astatine the People’s Palace successful Damascus, Syria, Sunday, Jan. 18, 2026. (Syrian Presidency/Handout/Anadolu via Getty Images)

"The woody integrates SDF fighters into the nationalist subject (as individuals, which remains among the astir contentious issues), manus implicit cardinal infrastructure (oil fields, dams, borderline crossings), and cede power of ISIS prisons and camps to Damascus," Barrack wrote connected X.

"This creates a unsocial model for the Kurds: integration into the caller Syrian authorities offers afloat citizenship rights (including for those antecedently stateless), designation arsenic an integral portion of Syria, law protections for Kurdish connection and civilization (e.g., teaching successful Kurdish, celebrating Nawruz arsenic a nationalist holiday), and information successful governance—far beyond the semi-autonomy the SDF held amid civilian warfare chaos," helium added.

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An aerial presumption of Hol Camp, wherever families linked to the Islamic State radical are being held, successful Hasakah province, Syria, Wednesday, Jan. 21, 2026. (Izz Aldien Alqasem/Anadolu via Getty Images)

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Syria’s Ministry of Interior said Monday that information forces had recaptured 81 of the 120 ISIS prisoners who escaped from the al-Shaddadi situation successful the Hasakah countryside and were continuing efforts to way down the remaining escapees.

The interim authorities and the SDF person since traded blasted implicit work for the escape, which occurred amid heightened tensions implicit information arrangements successful the region.