Germany brings back eight IS women and their children from Syria in a covert operation

According to media reports, Germany has taken eight German women and their children out of Syria. These had joined the terrorist militia “Islamic State” (IS) in the past. A plane with the women and their 23 children on board was expected at Frankfurt airport late on Wednesday evening.

According to the newspaper Bild, they were taken from a Kurdish camp in northern Syria by a team from the Foreign Office and the German Federal Criminal Police Office with the support of the US Air Force.

The Foreign Office in Berlin did not initially want to confirm the reports on Wednesday evening. According to information from the news agency Deutsche Presse-Agentur, an operation to bring back women and children from Syria was planned for Wednesday. Some of the adults are expected to be brought before a magistrate after their arrival in Germany. According to magazine “Spiegel”, there are warrants for the arrest of six of the eight women issued by the judicial authorities.

The news magazine reported that some of the women, aged between 30 and 38, had spent years with their children in the al-Hol anti-terror prison camp in northern Syria, which is guarded by Kurdish fighters. In the course of a humanitarian operation, they are now on their way back to their home country on a charter jet.

According to “Spiegel”, in addition to the women from Germany, three suspected IS supporters from Denmark were also on board the plane with their 14 children. It was the largest repatriation of Germans from Syria so far, reported “Bild”. Because of the support from the US military, the operation was treated with particular sensitivity.

In 2019, Austria brought back two children of Sabina S., a Viennese IS supporter who is suspected to have died. In the case, custody had been transferred to the grandparents. The Austrian Foreign Ministry currently assumes that there are around a dozen people with Austrian citizenship in north-eastern Syria, around half of whom are children.

https://exxpress.at/deutschland-holt-acht-is-frauen-samt-kindern-aus-syrien-zurueck/