After weeks of negotiations, the Foreign Office, in cooperation with an American aid organization, succeeded in bringing the German Laura H. together with three children from the al-Haul prison camp in northern Syria.
The woman from Hesse, who was in the camp for prisoners of ISIS since December 2018, is now to be flown out over the northern Iraqi city Erbil to Germany in the next few days. In March 2016 she left the Giessen area with her children for Syria and joined the IS in the summer.
In this country, the authorities are interested in the returnee from the war zone. The mother of two children has been investigated for suspected membership in a terrorist group. In addition, she is being prosecuted for violating the duty of care because she took her children to the crisis zone.
Laura H. is the first adult German to be taken out of al-Haul Prison Camp. So far, the federal government had evacuated only children from German IS supporters from the camp. Kurdish security forces have confiscated thousands of alleged IS supporters in the camp, according to volunteers reports catastrophic conditions that are life-threatening for the many children.
Apparently, the action only succeeded because Laura H. has a child with US citizenship and therefore committed an American aid organization in Syria for the release.
Following federal court rulings, the Federal Government is under massive pressure to bring more women from IS fighters out of the camp. So far, the Foreign Office (AA) argues that this is impossible because of the chaotic situation in northern Syria.
The US and the Kurds in the region have been pushing for a long time for Europeans to bring ISIS fighters and their wives and children back to their homelands and bring them to justice. According to current statistics, 81 German IS supporters in Syria are in warehouses or prisons that have moved into crisis areas in recent years.
In the case of the Germans, there is a concern that they continue to pose a danger after a return. Whether one can even condemn them before German courts is uncertain, since in many cases solid evidence is missing. Consequently, there are only about 26 people in Germany so far an arrest warrant.
Recently, Turkey had deported two German IS supporters to Germany who were able to flee the al-Haul camp and were then detained by Turkish security forces. Publicly threatens the government in Ankara again and again to deport more terror suspects to Germany. To whom this is, the German authorities do not know.