Should ISIS fighters/wives/children be repatriated?

[Yonadav]

Here is the latest about Hoda Muthana, who used college tuition money that her parents gave to her to instead finance her trip to Syria where she joined ISIS and burned her passport. In Syria, she ran a social media ISIS propaganda operation, until she was captured. It drives me nuts that the media keeps referring to her as an ISIS defector. No, she's not a defector. She is a captured enemy combatant who didn't express any interest in leaving ISIS until after her capture.

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/03/0...is-1202295

[The Valkyrie]

There's now a Kiwi jihadi who has been captured and there is debate about bringing him back here or what to do with him.

I say send him to the Iraqis. If they need a contribution, I'll supply the rope.

[Yonadav]

There's now a Kiwi jihadi who has been captured and there is debate about bringing him back here or what to do with him.

I say send him to the Iraqis.  If they need a contribution, I'll supply the rope.

These people should have had the decency to get themselves killed. Is he claiming that he was brainwashed? What story is he telling?

[Mister Agenda]

The real question about Hoda Muthana revolves around whether she ever had US citizenship in the first place. She was born in the USA a month after her father was fired from his position as a Yemeni diplomat. To say that she is not entitled to birthright citizenship because her father was a diplomat implies that her father still enjoyed diplomatic immunity after he was fired. That is not a wise precedent to set, but it is the argument that we are apparently going with (that for purposes of Hoda's citizenship at least, her father was still a Yemeni diplomat, opening the door other fired diplomats to claim immunity if they're caught, say, engaging in espionage, on the grounds that fired diplomats who remain in the USA are still somehow diplomats).

Yemen doesn't allow dual citizenship and requires 10 years residency to gain citizenship, so if she is rejected by the USA on the grounds that she isn't a citizen, then she's not a citizen of any country at all. It will be entirely up to her captors what happens to her. As a stateless person, her fate could be pretty much anything her captors decide, from execution to freedom. But at least we'll have claimed that fired diplomats are still diplomats for the sake of not taking on the responsibility to try her ourselves.

[The Valkyrie]

There's now a Kiwi jihadi who has been captured and there is debate about bringing him back here or what to do with him.

I say send him to the Iraqis.  If they need a contribution, I'll supply the rope.

These people should have had the decency to get themselves killed. Is he claiming that he was brainwashed? What story is he telling?

It was a mistake. He was hot headed when he went. But he claims he wasn't a fighter, just "a guard".

Yet he burned his NZ passport and called on others to attack ANZAC Day parades (our equivalent to Veterans' Day).

That should immediately get him banned from the country. Otherwise repatriate him and set him up on White Island (a volcanic island off the NZ coast).

[Yonadav]

These people should have had the decency to get themselves killed. Is he claiming that he was brainwashed? What story is he telling?

It was a mistake.  He was hot headed when he went.  But he claims he wasn't a fighter, just "a guard".

Yet he burned his NZ passport and called on others to attack ANZAC Day parades (our equivalent to Veterans' Day).

That should immediately get him banned from the country.  Otherwise repatriate him and set him up on White Island (a volcanic island off the NZ coast).

Yeah, to me it seems pretty cut and dry that these people relinquished their citizenship when they joined ISIS. Especially in light of the fact that they voluntarily burned their passports. Hoda Muthana posted a picture of herself holding her US passport with a caption saying that it was going on the bonfire soon. I don't know what the NZ law is, but in the US you forfeit your citizenship when you join the military of a nation that is engaged in hostilities with the US. A technical argument can be made that since we don't recognize ISIS as a nation, then joining their forces don't count as joining the military of a hostile nation; but that would be total rubbish. ISIS considers itself to be a sovereign nation, and these people who join them consider them to be a sovereign nation. Intent is everything, here. These people intended to join the forces of a hostile nation. So they forfeited their citizenship.

Here's the US law about US citizens joining the military forces of foreign nations.

https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/...rvice.html

[Shell B]

Meh, she defected. I don't give a shit about precedent or her fate. She did a thing and is living the consequences. We don't have to take her back and give her a fair trial. There really is nothing to put her on trial for in the U.S. She defected and burned her passport. She can answer for her actions elsewhere because none of them took place here or damaged the U.S. If there is reason to believe that she has committed a crime that hurt the U.S. or its citizens tangibly, I might feel differently. As it is, leave her to rot wherever she is. Fucking asshole.

[epronovost]

Most of those who are captured in Syria will probably dissappear in the black hole of the Assad regime prisons never to be heard off again. Once Assad is fully back on his throne, there will probably be a purge of those foreign nationals. They will have no trial and will simply be executed with more or less discretion. If there are still foreigners amongst the Kurdes, they will probably face the same fate as it would surprising for Assad not to touch the rebels of the Federation of Northern Syria once ISIS is declared dead in the region. My only question is will Assad kill the children too? A lot of the women who joined ISIS got married and started to have children. If I'm not mistaken, Hoda Muthana also has a child born under the ISIS flag. Considering the fact that the Syrian regime before the war wasn't exactly opposed to the idea of executing children, I doubt the probably harsher version of it that will take command of the country will let them live in orphanage they can't and don't want to build.

[Yonadav]

Most of those who are captured in Syria will probably dissappear in the black hole of the Assad regime prisons never to be heard off again. Once Assad is fully back on his throne, there will probably be a purge of those foreign nationals. They will have no trial and will simply be executed with more or less discretion. If there are still foreigners amongst the Kurdes, they will probably face the same fate as it would surprising for Assad not to touch the rebels of the Federation of Northern Syria once ISIS is declared dead in the region. My only question is will Assad kill the children too? A lot of the women who joined ISIS got married and started to have children. If I'm not mistaken, Hoda Muthana also has a child born under the ISIS flag. Considering the fact that the Syrian regime before the war wasn't exactly opposed to the idea of executing children, I doubt the probably harsher version of it that will take command of the country will let them live in orphanage they can't and don't want to build.

It sounds pretty heartless, but her child isn't our problem. The child is a Syrian citizen. Hoda Muthana had already forfeited any claim that she had to US citizenship before the child was born. We have no obligation toward that child.

However, for the sake of the child's relatives in America, I don't see any reason that one of them should not be permitted to travel to Syria, take custody of the child, and bring it to the US. Or perhaps the relatives would only have to go to Turkey, if the Syrians can arrange for the child to be transported there. Hoda Muthana might not be willing to give up her child like that. If she won't give the child up, then she's entirely responsible for what becomes of the child in Syrian hands.

[epronovost]

Most of those who are captured in Syria will probably dissappear in the black hole of the Assad regime prisons never to be heard off again. Once Assad is fully back on his throne, there will probably be a purge of those foreign nationals. They will have no trial and will simply be executed with more or less discretion. If there are still foreigners amongst the Kurdes, they will probably face the same fate as it would surprising for Assad not to touch the rebels of the Federation of Northern Syria once ISIS is declared dead in the region. My only question is will Assad kill the children too? A lot of the women who joined ISIS got married and started to have children. If I'm not mistaken, Hoda Muthana also has a child born under the ISIS flag. Considering the fact that the Syrian regime before the war wasn't exactly opposed to the idea of executing children, I doubt the probably harsher version of it that will take command of the country will let them live in orphanage they can't and don't want to build.

It sounds pretty heartless, but her child isn't our problem. The child is a Syrian citizen. Hoda Muthana had already forfeited any claim that she had to US citizenship before the child was born. We have no obligation toward that child.

However, for the sake of the child's relatives in America, I don't see any reason that one of them should not be permitted to travel to Syria, take custody of the child, and bring it to the US. Or perhaps the relatives would only have to go to Turkey, if the Syrians can arrange for the child to be transported there. Hoda Muthana might not be willing to give up her child like that. If she won't give the child up, then she's entirely responsible for what becomes of the child in Syrian hands.

According to Syrian law though, no, the child isn't Syrian. Citizenship in Syria is granted by the father's blood. If a Syrian man has children, no matter where or with who, his children are Syrian. If the father is unknown, the children gain the nationality if their mother is Syrian. So no, in her case, the child isn't Syrian under Syrian law. Also, according to international law and status on statelessness and ennemy combattant, if Muthana is indeed an American citizen (or was an American citizen), she must be returned to the US and face trial there. What is absolutly certain within international law is that she can't be stateless and face imprisonment or execution in a "foreign country" of course, Syrians don't want to have to handle them for obvious reasons as they are a security risk and drain on their scarce resources and their home country basically think the same thing. I think they are going to fall in the hole of undesirable and create a new generation of stateless terrorists whome are judicial system and institutions aren't equipped to treat fairly and whose hope of integrating a normal civil society is next to null.