Category: News

The U.S. military has completed the transfer of thousands of suspected Islamic State fighters to the Iraqi government, setting the stage for the expected withdrawal of many — perhaps even all — American troops from Syria within months despite concerns about the Syrian government’s ability to prevent a resurgence of the group, officials familiar with the issue said.

The movement of 5,700 detainees, underway for weeks, was completed Thursday night with a flight from northeastern Syria to Iraq, U.S. military officials said in a statement. The effort signals a forthcoming end to a yearslong mission overseen by the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a Kurdish militia group that had managed the detention facilities in territory it controlled in northeastern Syria.

The transfer began Jan. 21 as U.S. troops teamed with SDF and Iraqi counterparts to move the detainees using aircraft and armed ground convoys. It marks one of the most significant developments in years for the remnants of the Islamic State, the militant group whose bloody campaign across Syria and Iraq resulted in a multinational military intervention beginning in 2014. A smaller number of Syrians, fewer than 2,000, are expected to remain in Syria in the SDF-run detention centers until they are turned over to the Syrian government.

Many of the detainees who have been transferred are expected to be held at the Al-Karkh prison, an Iraqi facility near Baghdad International Airport, said U.S. officials, who like some others spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive military operations. It was once called Camp Cropper and used by the U.S. military to house detainees during the Iraq War. Iraq’s supreme judicial council said Friday that about 3,000 Syrians are among the detainees transferred.

In a statement, the White House said Trump is committed to a Syria that is “stable, unified and at peace with itself and its neighbors.” That requires Syria not being a base for terrorism or to pose a threat in the region and beyond, it says.

The United States is monitoring the situation in Syria and working with all sides, the statement says, to ensure that “ISIS detainees remain in detention,” including an organized transition of other detention centers in Syria to Syrian government control.

The shift underscores a major shift in U.S. policy toward Syria, as President Donald Trump, who has aligned himself with Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa, seeks to extricate the roughly 1,000 American troops who have remained there functioning as a backstop to prevent a resurgence by the Islamic State.

A report by the Director of National Intelligence last year said that the Islamic State will attempt to “reconstitute its attack capabilities,” including plotting against the West, and free prisoners to rebuild its ranks. Three U.S. troops were ambushed and killed by a suspected Islamic State member in Syria in December, prompting Trump to approve retaliatory airstrikes days later.

Sharaa, a former al-Qaeda militant who broke with the group in 2016, has sought to unify his country since his forces forced the December 2024 ouster of Syrian President Bashar Assad, a dictator whose 24-year rule was marked by mass atrocities and a civil war that killed hundreds of thousands of people. The Islamic State has repeatedly attempted to assassinate Sharaa over the last year, according to a United Nations report released this week.

One step in the withdrawal occurred Wednesday, as U.S. troops at the Tanf garrison in the southeastern part of Syria turned control over to Sharaa’s forces. Adm. Brad Cooper, the top officer overseeing U.S. operations in the region, said in a statement that U.S. forces retain the ability to respond to any threats posed by the Islamic State in the region.

Other bases could be transferred to Sharaa’s forces in coming days or weeks as conditions warrant, two officials familiar with the issue said. Doing so could allow Trump to fully end the U.S. mission there, a goal since his first administration that consistently collided with challenges posed by Syria’s fractured state.

Trump has downplayed Sharaa’s past as a jihadist, telling reporters in January that the Syrian leader was “working very hard.” He’s characterized him as a “tough guy” with a “pretty tough resumé.”

“You’re not gonna put a choir boy in there and get the job done,” Trump said at the time.

Still, U.S. officials said, Washington had privately delivered warnings to their Iraqi counterparts about Sharaa’s ability to ensure security over the ISIS detention camps. One senior U.S. official said in an interview with the Washington Post that the Trump administration had told Baghdad in the fall that it was “entirely likely” that if Sharaa’s government took control of the alleged terrorism suspects, they could be freed or break loose at some point and attack Iraq again.

Sharaa could not be reached for comment.

Iraqi officials acknowledged then that there was cause for concern, the senior U.S. official said. But those anxieties accelerated last month, as Sharaa’s forces pressed forward with an armed offensive into SDF-held territory, forcing the group to abandon two major facilities, the Shaddadi prison and al-Hol camp, allowing about 200 detainees to escape on Jan. 19.

The detainees were considered “low-level” fighters, and dozens were later recaptured, U.S. officials said. But the episode triggered alarm in Washington and Baghdad and prompted numerous phone calls from senior U.S. officials to Sharaa, officials said, including at least one by Cooper on Jan. 21 and one by Trump on Jan. 27, these people said.

Abdulkarim Omar, a representative with the SDF’s civilian government, called the moves of Sharaa’s forces in the region “aggression.” The Kurdish people, he said, “became victims of international arrangements concluded over their heads” and have seen “international silence.”

Cooper also made a visit to northeastern Syria on Jan. 22, as his team attempted to ensure that Sharaa’s forces and the SDF adhered to a ceasefire as the detainees were transferred from Syria to Iraq, according to a U.S. military statement at the time.

“It definitely could have gone completely sideways, to be completely honest with you,” a senior U.S. official told the Post, noting that U.S. soldiers remained in the region as tensions were high between the SDF and Sharaa’s fighters.

Trump acknowledged calling Sharaa, saying his team had “solved a tremendous problem in conjunction with Syria and saved many lives.” He did not elaborate.

The undertaking has triggered mixed feelings in the region, even as officials there appear to cooperate with U.S. desires.

Hussein Allawi, an Iraqi security adviser, said his government is urging other governments to take back ISIS suspects from their countries so that Iraq is not overwhelmed. Iraq, he said is “totally capable” of handling the issue, but will face infrastructure challenges.

Jiwan Soz, a Kurdish researcher, said that “despite the interference of the Americans” in the dispute between the SDF and Sharaa’s fighters, the Syrian president “cannot control the situation.” The armed groups Al-Sharaa relies on have a variety of tribal affiliations and allegiances, he said, and armed skirmishes have continued.

“There are huge challenges there, and I don’t believe al-Sharaa can succeed,” he said.

Nawar Rahawie, a Syrian official, said the ceasefire is fragile and will require persuasion. Tribal fighters who aligned with both the SDF and the Syrian government have kept their fighters out of the fray, he said, and Sharaa has “a certain level of control over the tribes and fighters.”

He added that people of all kinds were “harmed by the Assad regime,” and credited Sharaa’s government for offering a new way. Syrian officials are investigating “crimes and murder” that have emerged, and will seek accountability, he said.

James Jeffrey, a former U.S. ambassador who focused on Syria during the first Trump administration, told the House Foreign Affairs Committee this week that he is “wary” of Sharaa, but has watched him push Iranian influence away from Syria and combat Islamic State fighters who remain — both core U.S. goals.

U.S. troops in Syria have worked with both the SDF and Sharaa’s forces in recent months, Jeffrey said, and Washington will have a better understanding of what occurs in the region the longer they remain.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement expects to spend $38.3 billion on its plan to acquire warehouses across the country and retrofit them into immigrant detention centers that can hold tens of thousands of immigrants, according to documents the agency provided to New Hampshire’s governor and published on the state’s website Thursday.

ICE plans to buy and convert 16 buildings across the country to serve as regional processing centers, each holding 1,000 to 1,500 immigrant detainees at a time, according to one of the documents, an overview of the detention plan. Another eight large-scale detention centers will hold 7,000 to 10,000 detainees at a time, and serve as “the primary locations” for international removals.

Detainees would spend an average of three to seven days at the processing sites before being transported to the larger facilities, where they would be held about 60 days before being deported, according to the document. The additional detention space is necessary, the document states, due to ICE’s hiring of more agents and an expected surge in arrests.

The documents offer the most complete picture to date of the Trump administration’s plan to overhaul immigrant detention using buildings that were originally designed for industrial purposes — an expansive effort aimed at boosting ICE’s ability to arrest more immigrants and deport them faster. Rather than moving people around the country to any detention center with available beds, the new system of warehouses is designed to funnel them into a series of large-scale holding centers where they will await deportation, ICE documents show.

They also demonstrate the scale and resources the Trump administration has devoted to building a mass deportation network. The plan’s $38 billion budget is more than the total annual spending for 22 states, according to state budget data.

The Washington Post first reported on an earlier, draft solicitation document in December. Warehouses in Berks and Schuylkill Counties would be converted into detention centers as part of the plan.

ICE has offered little information about the effort, prompting concern from state and local officials who have cited several logistical and humanitarian concerns of building large-scale detention centers in their regions.

New Hampshire Gov. Kelly Ayotte said in a news release that the Department of Homeland Security shared the documents for the first time with her office on Thursday. Her statement appeared to contradict a claim made by Todd M. Lyons, ICE’s acting director, who testified at a Senate hearing earlier that day that DHS officials had previously spoken to the governor about the project and provided “an economic impact summary” to her.

A spokeswoman for DHS did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment. The ICE document says all new facilities will need to comply with federal detention standards and provide for the “safe and humane civil detention of aliens.”

In recent weeks, ICE has spent more than $690 million acquiring at least eight industrial buildings in Maryland, Arizona, Georgia, Texas, Pennsylvania, and Michigan, according to real estate deeds and internal ICE records reviewed by the Post. The agency has confirmed its interest in at least four additional buildings in Georgia, New Hampshire, New York, and New Jersey, according to statements made by local officials in those places.

The government plans to hire contractors to carry out extensive renovations, turning vacant shells into holding facilities featuring lobbies, recreational space, dormitories, courtroom spaces, and cafeterias. At a building ICE plans to acquire in Merrimack, N.H., the agency expects to spend $158 million retrofitting the facility, according to an ICE economic impact assessment Ayotte posted to her website.

It’s not clear which companies will be hired to renovate and operate the new facilities. George Zoley, the founder and executive chairman of ICE detention contractor Geo Group, said on a quarterly earnings call with Wall Street analysts Thursday that his company wants to be supportive of the new initiative, but cautioned that renovating warehouses would be “more complicated than you may think.”

Geo Group once converted a warehouse into a holding center for 500 people about 30 years ago — nothing like the enormous size of the facilities being proposed now, Zoley said. “The operational implications of how you manage such a facility, particularly a large-scale facility, is going to be concerning,” Zoley said.

The Post previously reported that some warehouses are expected to accept detainees as soon as April. ICE appears to have given multiple deadlines for when it expects the centers to be operational, according to the overview document. The agency will “fully implement a new detention model” by Sept. 30 and will “activate” all facilities by Nov. 30.

Manchester Ink Link, a local news outlet, reported earlier on some of the details in the Manchester documents.

Details of the expensive warehouse renovation effort have come to light as Democratic lawmakers in Washington have blocked bills to fund DHS in an attempt to force lawmakers to include new restrictions on federal immigration agents. Though the federal government was hurtling toward a partial shutdown beginning this weekend, the closures would not impact ICE’s funding because Republicans sent the agency tens of billions of dollars last year — including a historic $45 billion for immigrant detention.

In several of the towns targeted for the project, local officials have said their water and sewer infrastructure would not be sufficient for a new facility holding thousands of people. For example, in Social Circle, Ga., a town with a population of 5,000, the town is permitted to pump up to 1 million gallons of water per day, and for much of the year, its peak usage is already above 800,000 gallons, according to data the city’s manager shared with the Post.

In the project overview document, ICE says it reviewed the water supply at all of the proposed buildings, and found that “the capacities currently at the sites are sufficient to support the new facilities.” However, at the larger sites, the document said, “additional infrastructure” would be needed to support wastewater systems, and “numerous solutions” will be implemented. The document did not providing any more details.

Federally owned real estate is often exempt from local permitting and zoning rules, but elected officials in some of the locations have pressed DHS to adhere to these requirements anyway. The detention plan overview states that the department will comply with the National Environmental Policy Act, federal law that requires environmental review of federal real estate projects before they can be built.

DHS is pitching the New Hampshire project as “a major economic investment” that will help create 1,252 jobs during renovations and 265 jobs each year of operation, according to the economic impact document. The department said it expects to spend $146 million on the first three years of the facility’s operation.

The analysis for New Hampshire contained what appeared to be a copy-and-paste error in describing “ripple effects to the Oklahoma economy.” ICE’s plans to buy a warehouse in Oklahoma City were scrapped last month, after the building’s owner decided not to sell.

At least two other proposed deals — in Kansas City, Mo., and in Virginia — have also fallen through.

These cancellations have revealed how the agency has pursued the projects. The owner of the Kansas City warehouse, a firm called Platform Ventures, said Thursday that it had begun negotiating a deal to sell its warehouse after being approached by a “third-party private enterprise” that it did not name.

Platform Ventures said it learned DHS was the buyer only once the deal got closer. When the public also learned about the buyer, the city council quickly passed a five-year ban on all new nonmunicipal detention facilities. The company said Thursday that it exited negotiations because it said “the terms no longer met our fiduciary requirements for a timely closing.”

The federal government also plans to take ownership of 10 existing detention centers where ICE currently operates in buildings owned by private contractors or local governments, the overview document said, without providing more detail.

These facilities, combined with the new warehouses, would accommodate a total of 92,600 detainees at a time, the documents said.