France under pressure to support Syrian Kurds as ISIS prisoner fears intensify

Syria’s period of transition comes with security risks for western countries

A Turkish-backed Syrian National Army fighter watches smoke rising from a bombardment near Manbij, in Aleppo province, amid battles with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces. AFP

France is trying to find ways to support its Kurdish allies as fears grow over their ability to maintain ISIS prisoners in detention in post-Assad Syria.

Estimated at 200 men, women and children, French detainees represent the largest number of western prisoners held by the Kurds since at least 2019.

France is also America's number one partner on the ground in north-east Syria and has posted dozens of special forces believed to be stationed near US military bases in support of Kurdish-led military group the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

US president-elect Donald Trump is threatening to withdraw the 2,000 troops in the area. Kurdish military leaders have given media interviews pleading with the US and France to send soldiers to protect them from Turkish incursions and to secure ISIS prisoners.

“The Kurds are cosying up to France, which views its engagement with them primarily through the lens of the fight against ISIS,” said Chris Huby, an independent French documentary maker who has worked extensively in north-east Syria.

France appears to be increasingly viewed by Syria's Kurds as a more reliable defender than the US, which, like Turkey, has called on European countries to repatriate their detainees from Kurdish prisons lest they be viewed as an unreliable partner by Washington.

But France also needs US backing to be sent in the region. The National understands that sensitive talks are continuing behind closed doors between France, Turkey and the SDF on one hand, and the SDF and the new rebel authorities in charge in Damascus, Hayat Tahrir Al Sham (HTS), on the other.

In 2014, three years after the start of the civil war in Syria, Syria's Kurds achieved de facto autonomy in an area that produces 70 per cent of Syria's oil – a status they would like to keep.

Yet Turkey has vowed to wipe out Kurdish armed groups in north-eastern Syria, who form the backbone of the SDF, as it considers them terrorists. A US withdrawal may embolden Turkey to make further moves against them, which it has vowed to do if they do not lay down their arms and join a future united Syrian military controlled from Damascus.

Pre-emptive moves

As world powers adjust to the HTS takeover of Damascus, Kurdish groups appear to want to pre-empt moves in the region by making their demands clear, well aware that most European countries need their collaboration to keep citizens viewed as dangerous in detention. ISIS remains active: last week, Syria's Intelligence Directorate foiled an attempt by the group to bomb the Sayyeda Zeinab shrine in Damascus.

Still sharp in Kurdish minds is Mr Trump's partial withdrawal of US troops from north-east Syria under his previous mandate in 2018, which heightened the view that the US is an unreliable partner.

In a possible indication of how sensitive talks on the matter have become, Paris remained silent on the issue of repatriating detainees despite recent criticism from Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, who said that his only interlocutor is the US and called on France to repatriate its citizens from Kurdish prisons.

In Paris, the view is that the Turkish government is hoping to get close to Mr Trump but nevertheless continues to talk to France. Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot has spoken frequently to Mr Fidan in the past weeks and has also sent officials to Ankara.

Security threats

The possibility of ISIS prisoners escaping from Kurdish prisons and attacking France, historically the group's number one target in the West, may explain France's efforts to maintain good diplomatic relations with its partners.

Speaking to daily Le Monde, the head of France's foreign intelligence agency, Nicolas Lerner, on Monday said that “constant vigilance” was needed on Syria. The fall of the Assad regime represents a security risk for France, Mr Lerner said, highlighting the adults and children detained in Kurdish camps. The ISIS-inspired attack on New Year's Day in New Orleans has raised fears of copycat attacks on other western countries.

Yet France's official position on the matter remains unchanged. Adults who joined ISIS must be tried as close as possible to where their crimes were committed, the government says, even though it remains unclear where a trial would take place.

Trials in Iraq are not supported because the death penalty remains in place and France had no diplomatic relations with Assad's Syria. When possible, Paris repatriates children from Kurdish prisoners camps. The last such operation was in July 2023.

But some have told French media that they want to return. In a documentary released last year by French television and directed by Mr Huby, 21-year-old Adem Clain, who was taken to Syria at the age of 11 in 2014 and is detained in Syria by the SDF, distanced himself from his parents' decision to join ISIS.