The federal government has brought back several German nationals from north-eastern Syria. This was confirmed by a spokesman for the Federal Ministry of the Interior on Wednesday in Berlin. The Federal Criminal Police Office participated in the retrieval. The ministry did not give any further details, including with reference to personal rights and the protection of minors.
“Spiegel” and “Bild” had previously reported on the repatriation of suspected German supporters of the terrorist militia Islamic State (IS) and their children from Syria. The four women and several children had been in Kurdish prison camps for years. The Federal Public Prosecutor and other public prosecutor’s offices are investigating the women, among other things, on suspicion of membership in a terrorist organization.
According to information from security circles, your transfer to Germany will take place with a US Air Force transport plane via an air base in Kuwait, according to the “Spiegel” report. The machine is therefore expected in Frankfurt am Main in the evening hours.
According to “Spiegel”, there is also a 20-year-old man on board the plane. He was kidnapped by his mother as a teenager to the IS. In his case, the federal government is deviating from the previous line of bringing only women and children back to Germany for the first time. The Attorney General is also conducting terror proceedings against him.
The air transport is the sixth return campaign to date. On the first flight in the summer of 2019, only orphans and sick children of IS supporters were brought to Germany from a camp in northern Syria. Several flights with women and children followed later. According to information from the “Spiegel”, there are still 40 German IS supporters in detention camps or prisons in northern Syria. More than two thirds of them are men.
