"Children of ISIS members facing imprisonment question why they're being punished for their parents' actions"
Stefan Uterloo, now nineteen years old, told them he had a relative in the United States but couldn't recall where. He speculates that their interest waned when they found out he wasn't American but instead hailed from Suriname, a small former Dutch colony in South America.
Five years later, Uterloo spends each day with twenty-five other young men in a single cell at Panorama, a maximum-security prison in northeastern Syria. CNN had the opportunity to interview him there.
Funded by the US-led coalition against ISIS and managed by the coalition's ally, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) – a Kurdish-led militia – Panorama houses many of the most perilous ISIS members apprehended in 2019 following the demise of the group's caliphate, which once stretched across eastern Syria and western Iraq.
Approximately 4,000 ISIS male prisoners are reportedly held by the SDF, with roughly 600 boys and young men detained as children. According to Amnesty International, many of these individuals were transported to Syria by their parents to dwell under ISIS jurisdiction. Now, they are reaching adulthood in prison and have no clue why they're detained or what awaits them.
Uterloo remarked, "I'm not really sure about the grown-ups. But in reference to the children, if you're wondering the reality, we're unsure why we're always reprimanded. It's been like five years in this prison ... We don't even know what crimes we committed. It's about our parents."
The United Nations and human rights organizations have long cautioned about the humanitarian and legal crises confronting the ISIS fighters' offspring, who have been housed in refugee camps and detention centers in northeastern Syria for years. However, there has been a lack of agreement regarding what to do with them. Recently, as the US worries that the militant group may attempt to reemerge and launch attacks on the West, it has stepped up attempts to repatriate these individuals to face trial in their home countries.
Amnesty estimates that the 30,000 children residing in at least twenty-seven detention facilities and two detention camps – Al-Hol and Al-Roj – in northeastern Syria constitute the greatest number of children held under arbitrary detention and denied their liberty worldwide.
CNN obtained exclusive access to detention camps and facilities that house alleged ISIS fighters and their family members, including Panorama prison. The SDF hadn't granted media access to Panorama since 2021; this was mere weeks after Amnesty issued a report implicating the SDF of fostering inhumane conditions. The rights group accused the SDF of torturing detainees while denying them sufficient food and healthcare, causing a significant outbreak of tuberculosis at the prison.
The SDF has vigorously denied these allegations, claiming they're not an accurate representation of the situation. SDF commander Mazloum Abdi told CNN, "The accusations from these organizations don’t align with the reality."
During the time CNN was granted access to only two cells monitored by the SDF, the detainees appeared in average physical condition, sitting cross-legged in spacious, well-ventilated, and modern spaces. Nevertheless, the SDF conceded that tuberculosis is widespread in the prison, leading to five deaths per month.
The detainees, as per SDF officials, spend up to twenty-three hours a day in their cells and are held indefinitely without charge. Human rights activists decry this situation as a "legal black hole," even more harrowing than the USA's Guantanamo Bay detention facility.
At Al-Hol, a sprawling camp of faded tents, rusted barbed wire, and wind-swept sands with over 40,000 residents, the scale of the problem becomes more apparent. The camp is inhabited by individuals with ISIS affiliations and the displaced, some of whom are ISIS victims themselves.
In a high-security annex, there are roughly 6,700 women and children interrelated with ISIS fighters from sixty countries. The camp's population consists predominantly of children, most not yet twelve years of age.
General Erik Kurilla, head of the US military's Central Command, stated in a 2022 visit to Al-Hol, "This place is a time bomb. It's a literal breeding ground for the next generation of ISIS."
A senior US government official offered an even more direct assessment, describing the camp as "ISIS's desire to keep everyone there, loyal and primed."
Monthly, around a couple dozen boys between the ages of 10 and 15 are sneaked out of Al-Hol to ISIS training grounds, claims an insider. Regular security inspections of Al-Hol uncover cell phone videos showcasing the training, as well as grisly indications of extrajudicial killings by ISIS sympathizers.
In an unbelievably shocking video, shared with CNN for the first time, a woman suspected of associating with camp leaders is videotaped being brutally assaulted before being decapitated within Al-Hol – an act of ISIS-style extrajudicial retribution that we desperately wanted to avoid re-emerging.
The SDF and the US remain determined in their efforts to persuade nations to reclaim their citizens from Syria, stating that this is the only reasonable solution to this intricate and hazardous conundrum.
The camp's population has shrunk by 42% from its peak of approximately 73,000 in 2019, according to US officials who point out that the process is moving at a snail's pace and that several countries, including those with the potential to cancel citizenship more quickly than the US, are still reluctant.
A senior US official voiced their frustration, saying, "It's unhelpful."
Making matters more complicated, the majority of the camp's detainees hail from countries with no allegiance to the US-led coalition, such as Russians, Chinese Uyghurs, and Syrians from regime-controlled regions. Consequently, the SDF's ambition to permanently close Al-Hol appears implausible at the moment. With the existing rate of repatriation, officials anticipate that it will take at least another 7 years to halve the camp's current population.
Forcibly taken from their mothers at night
As a temporary fix, the SDF has implemented a policy that separates boys at 14 from their mothers, relocating them to two specially designed "rehabilitation" facilities. CNN encounters children as young as 11 at one of these centers, implying that camp authorities may be going beyond the pre-established policy. A woman in Al-Hol claims that her 10-year-old son was detained for attempting to escape the camp, with boys frequently being taken away at age 12.
The SDF justifies this policy by maintaining that it prevents boys from being radicalized by their mothers and prevents future generations of ISIS militants from being born in the camps. They argue that the high birthrate at Al-Hol – approximately 60 births per month – proves that young boys are already being married.
However, this policy is a clear violation of international law, believes former UN Special Rapporteur on counterterrorism and human rights Fionnuala Ní Aoláin.
"It crosses the line into war crimes territory," Ní Aoláin told CNN. "There's no legal basis for it...forcibly taking a child away from a mother should be a last resort when all other attempts have been exhausted. And it's neither a last resort nor a legitimate procedure, instead often a rather violent and arbitrary process."
The SDF believes that the alternative would be significantly worse.
Compared to Al-Hol, the Orkesh "rehabilitation" center, where some boys and young men are held, seems almost like a safe haven. Its main courtyard features a soccer field, where almost every morning just before the scorching heat sets in, Shamil Chakar plays goalkeeper.
Chakar, a tall, lanky teenager from Cologne, Germany, was transported with his family to Raqqa, the former seat of ISIS' proclaimed caliphate.
He moves with freedom on the field, but the shrapnel injury, which left a sizable scar on his head, has impaired his judgment. When he sits down to chat, he doesn't know his own age. However, the memory of the night he was torn away from Al-Hol by SDF security forces is still fresh.
"A man came and grabbed me and tied my hands behind my back," Shamil recounts. "My mother was yelling,'leave him alone.' I refused to go with them. He forced me, demanding I put on my shoes but I didn't. Then he hit me."
Boys have similar stories of violent separations. They all miss their mothers. However, their lives have significantly changed. At the center, they have rooms with beds, three meals per day, and psychological assistance five days a week.
"I'd choose an American prison any day"
Second chances are difficult to find. Repentance is demanded, and pardon is rarely granted. But when it does happen, it occurs at Al-Roj camp.
It is much smaller and more manageable than Al-Hol, and it's where foreign detainees are sent for repatriation.
In early May, 50-year-old American Brandy Salman and her nine children, between the ages 7 and 26, as well as two young sons of a Minnesotan man, left Al-Roj in what turned out to be one of the biggest repatriations to the US at that time.
Approximately a dozen Americans remain in Al-Roj, according to US officials who are attempting to bring them back.
However, for now, Hoda Muthana, an American-born woman, isn't in the same boat as the others. She's been stranded in Al-Roj for over five years with her now seven-year-old son. She's known in the camp for her outspoken nature. She doesn't wear a face veil and has even written "F-ISIS" on the wall outside her tent.
Born and raised in Alabama, she left her family at the age of 20 to live under ISIS after being lured in by the group's propaganda on social media. She eventually became a renowned ISIS propagandist herself, celebrating their attacks on Twitter and urging others to join the self-proclaimed caliphate. Muthana asserts that she didn't personally write the tweets herself; her phone was taken when she joined ISIS, and this is a decision she massively regrets.
As her son gets closer to the age of the forced separation policy, she lives in constant dread about his future.
Her lawyers in the US are still striving for her return and that of her son. After the Trump administration revoked her passport on a technicality in 2019, stating she was not a citizen, the administration refused to acknowledge her as a citizen. Muthana's legal team has now directly petitioned the State Department for a certificate of identity to ascertain her status.
A State Department spokesperson told CNN that they haven't changed their stance on her citizenship. "Hoda Muthana is not a US citizen. As the State Department determined and the courts concurred, she is not and never was a US citizen. For privacy reasons, we can't provide further comment," they said.
Muthana's lawyer, Christina Jump, told CNN that the department's standpoint is at best hypocritical and at worst dishonest.
"The US has taken a lofty approach in lecturing other nations to repatriate. If Hoda Muthana is not a US citizen, then she's stateless, which is a violation of international law, and it directly contradicts what the US government has stated that other countries must not and should not do. They also overlook the fact that she is, at the very least, the granddaughter of US citizens who have remained in that camp for several years now," Jump said.
Inside a tent filled with her son's toys and books, Muthana told CNN her only desire is to return to the US, even if it means languishing in prison.
"If I had any time to serve, I would serve it and then return to my son. If I were given the option between an American prison and this camp, I would choose an American prison without hesitation," she emphasized.
Read also:
In the global discourse on detainees from ISIS, the Middle East remains a significant focus due to the large number of individuals held in Syria by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
According to Amnesty International, approximately 30,000 children residing in detention facilities in northeastern Syria are among the greatest number of children held under arbitrary detention worldwide, originating mainly from countries in the Middle East.
