The US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) handed over on Thursday more than 150 Iraqi and foreign Islamic State (IS) fighters and their families to Iraq, according to Iraqi military sources and a local mayor as quoted by Reuters.
Ten trucks transported the IS fighters and their families to Iraq where they are in a “safe place” and are being investigated, an Iraqi security official told the news agency.
Thousands of militants and radicals have joined the IS in the last five years.
“The majority of them are Iraqis, and the convoy was under maximum security protection while headed to the Jazeera and Badiya military headquarters,” said an Iraqi official called Ahmed al-Mahallawi.
Several world leaders have warned of the phenomenon of foreign militants coming from all over the world to join the militant group and fight.
According to AFP, the transfer comes as the Kurdish-led SDF have swept down the Euphrates River Valley and confined IS to a final sliver of territory near the porous Iraqi-Syrian border.
