North East Syria Is Still Dealing With the World’s Forgotten ISIS Problem
It’s been four years since Kurdish-led forces defeated the ISIS caliphate. But still today, the new authorities in North East Syria have to deal with thousands of foreign ISIS fighters, whose homelands refuse pleas to take them back.
Women with their children walking in the al-Roj camp in North East Syria, which, along with the al-Hol camp, houses thousands of die-hard foreign ISIS women. (Anna Rebrii and Liza Shishko)
“I never liked it here in Syria,” laments Ali, a sixteen-year-old Turkish American. He hails from New York, yet we meet him at a rehabilitation center for the so-called lion cubs of the caliphate, boys whom ISIS once trained and sent to kill. He is in the middle of giving a haircut to one of his friends, dutifully sitting in front of a mirror, as part of the barber class that the former child fighters are given by the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES).
“I came here when I was in the fourth grade,” he tells us hastily, visibly excited to meet someone from his hometown. “I really want to go back to New York and catch up with my studies.” We watch the razor moving swiftly in his hand. “At least I’ll know how to do a haircut when I leave here.”
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