Iraq hands over four suspected IS women, dozens of children to Russia

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region (Kurdistan 24) – The Iraqi government has handed over to the Russian government four women and 27 children with links to the Islamic State (IS), the Iraqi Foreign Ministry stated on Thursday.

Baghdad is currently conducting trials for hundreds of foreign women and children who have been detained by Iraqi forces in the past year during military operations to liberate the country from the jihadist group.

“Iraq has returned to Russia 27 children and four women who were tricked into joining Daesh,” the ministry’s spokesperson, Ahmed Mahjoub, told reporters, using the pejorative Arabic acronym for IS.

Mahjoub stated that the women and children were investigated by authorities and were deemed not to have taken part in “terrorist operations against civilians and Iraqi security forces,”  adding they would be “prosecuted in Russia for entering Iraq illegally.”

Following the emergence of IS in Iraq and Syria in 2014, thousands of foreign nationals joined the jihadist group. Accompanying them were women who came from different parts of the world.

Many IS militants and women surrendered to the Kurdish Peshmerga forces on the front lines. Some of them were handed over to their respective countries for prosecution.

Iraq declared victory over IS in December 2017 after years of fierce fighting against the jihadist group. Since then, Iraqi courts have begun prosecuting foreign IS militants.

According to Iraq’s counterterrorism law, aiding or membership to the extremist group carries the penalty of life in prison or death.

Baghdad’s Criminal Court since January has sentenced two women to death for joining IS: a German and a Turkish woman. The same court on Sunday also sentenced nine Turkish women and one Azeri woman to life in prison, with the possibility of an appeal for all verdicts.

Editing by Nadia Riva