Human Rights Watch warns against secret transfer of jihadists from Syria

Any transfers of suspected foreign jihadists and their relatives out of Syria should be transparent, Human Rights Watch told AFP, as camps in the northeast fill with families of different nationalities.

With the crumbling of the Islamic State group, France is now considering bringing dozens of accused French jihadists, as well as their wives and children, back home from the detention centres and camps run by US-backed forces fighting IS.

“We would definitely like to be present (during the transfer), or at least there should be some transparency,” Nadim Houry, HRW’s director of counter-terrorism, told AFP in the northern Syrian town of Amuda late Wednesday.

“As we speak, there may already be transfers happening. There’s been a total lack of transparency, and bad things happen in the dark,” he warned.

Tens of thousands of foreigners are estimated to have joined IS since 2014, but they have streamed out of the jihadists’ collapsing “caliphate” in recent years.

SOURCE: Yahoo News