PodcastTurkey sends American ISIS militant to US after stalemate with Greece
An American ISIS fighter who has been stuck in a no man's land at the border between Turkey and Greece since Nov. 11, has been deported to the United States, the Turkish Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu said on Nov. 15. Soylu said earlier this month that Turkey would start extraditing captured ISIS militants to their home countries.
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Turkey sent an American citizen ISIS suspect to the United States by plane on Nov. 15, Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu said, after the man was refused entry to Greece earlier this week as Ankara begun to repatriate militants.
Turkish authorities have been deporting captured ISIS suspects to their home countries since Nov. 11. One of the suspects, a U.S. citizen of Arab descent, had requested deportation to Greece, but was refused entry. The man had been stuck in a buffer zone between Turkey and Greece since.
Speaking to reporters in Ankara on Nov. 15, Soylu said the suspect had been deported and sent to the United States by plane from Istanbul. He added that three more ISIS fighters had been repatriated to their home countries, without naming which country.
Turkey, which has suffered multiple deadly attacks by ISIS militants, says it has captured 287 fighters in northeast Syria since launching a cross-border incursion on Oct. 9 targeting the Kurdish YPG militia.
Ankara says it is has hundreds more jihadists in detention, and has accused European countries of being loath to take back citizens who traveled to join ISIS militants fighting in Middle East wars, mainly in Syria and Iraq.
Turkey's move to deport the American ISIS militant came on Nov. 14.
“Upon guarantees that he will be taken back by the United States and that travel documents will be procured, the necessary proceedings have been started to send him to the United States,” the Turkish Interior Ministry had said in a statement.