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Indonesia monitors Syria amid IS fighter concerns
Seeking safety: Syrians flee with their belongings from the countryside of the northeastern Syrian town of Ras al-Ain on the Turkish border toward the west to the town of Tal Tamr on Saturday
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eeking safety: Syrians flee with their belongings from the countryside of the northeastern Syrian town of Ras al-Ain on the Turkish border toward the west to the town of Tal Tamr on Saturday. Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan fired off a fresh warning on Sunday that Turkey would "crush" Kurdish forces as both sides traded accusations the other had violated a United States-brokered truce deal in northeastern Syria.(AFP/Delil Souleiman)
Indonesia is monitoring the situation in northeastern Syria closely amid concerns that Indonesian Islamic State (IS) fighters might flee home or regroup, though Indonesian authorities have yet to confirm reports about their possible escape.
National Counterterrorism Agency (BNPT) head Comr. Gen. Suhardi Alius said the government was on high alert and communicating with partner countries about developments in Syria after Turkey began an offensive across the Syrian border on Oct. 9.
“We are closely following all developments [in Syria]. This issue was also discussed at a meeting with global security agencies in Sochi, Russia, which was also attended by the United Nations,” he said recently.
Suhardi was in Russia to attend the 18th conference of intelligence, law enforcement and security service heads of foreign partner agencies of the Russian Federal Security Service, which began Wednesday.
“We cannot underestimate [the ability of IS fighters to escape], even though the information circulating in the media hasn't been verified,” he said.
Just days after United States President Donald Trump's Oct. 6 decision to withdraw forces from two posts in northeastern Syria, Turkey launched a cross-border operation against Syrian Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) fighters.
The Turkish assault prompted alarm that it could allow IS militants to escape Kurdish-run prisons in northern Syria and regroup.
Ankara, however, dismissed those concerns, saying that its objective was to clear its southern frontier region of the YPG, which it views as a terrorist organization, and to form a “safe zone” 30 kilometers into Syrian territory where it wants to settle millions of Syrian refugees, Reuters earlier reported.
Ankara has pledged to take responsibility for IS militants within the safe zone, but said it would not be accountable for others.
According to Reuters, Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar said last week, without elaborating on details, that Syrian Kurdish YPG fighters had emptied the only jail holding IS prisoners and that the prisoners there had been abducted. There was no immediate YPG comment.
South China Morning Post cited last Wednesday an unnamed Indonesian counterterrorism source who said some 50 Indonesian IS fighters and their families were believed to have escaped from prison in northern Syria during Turkey’s invasion to oust Kurdish forces.
However, Suhardi said this number had not been confirmed and should be rechecked with the Indonesian mission in Damascus.
Indonesian Ambassador to Syria Wajid Fauzi said the embassy was still trying to collect information.
“Considering that the region is in the middle of a conflict, the Indonesian Embassy is trying to monitor and seek information through the ICRC [International Committee of the Red Cross],” he said.
According to a government official who was directly involved in the repatriation of ISIS sympathizers in 2017, the latest data showed there were 226 Indonesian IS sympathizers in Syria — 42 of them were IS fighters.
Indonesian Ambassador to Turkey Lalu Muhammad Iqbal said the embassy in Ankara had been communicating with Turkish security forces in anticipation of possible ex-IS members crossing into their borders.
He said, however, it was not possible for the IS fighters to escape and return to Indonesia via Turkey because Turkish authorities had prepared full-scale security to anticipate such movements.
“If any Indonesian IS fighter escaped, they could only do that through Iraq,” he said.
Sidney Jones of the Jakarta-based Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict (IPAC) said it was almost entirely unlikely that Indonesians from refugee camps in Syria would be able to find their way back soon, considering that many had neither travel documents nor money.
“The bigger danger is that large numbers of women and children die in the desert and this becomes part of the ISIS narrative that is used to recruit Indonesians here at home,” she said, referring to the IS by another acronym.
Indonesia, according to Suhardi, was having discussions with various partners through bilateral, regional and international channels about the best way to prevent IS fighters from regrouping in other places.
Many countries, especially European ones, he said, had consulted Indonesia on strategies to deal with a possible inflow of IS fighters into their countries, which are geographically close to Syria.
“They asked about what format we used to deal with terrorists, referring to Indonesia’s best practices,” Suhardi said.
According to the Kurdish administration, there are around 12,000 suspected IS fighters in the custody of Kurdish security forces across northeastern Syria. At least 2,500 of them are non-Iraqi foreigners of more than 50 different nationalities, AFP reported.
About a week after the Turkish military offensive, Turkey and the US reached an agreement that gave Kurdish forces five days for a complete withdrawal from a safe zone along the border — a deadline that expires Tuesday night. However, Ankara and the Kurdish forces accused each other Saturday of breaching the truce, which was intended to halt the Turkish offensive on the condition that the militants retreat, according to AFP.
