Terrorism

Turkey said on Monday it had deported two captives from Islamic State - a German and an American - beginning a program to repatriate detainees that has caused friction with its NATO allies since it launched an offensive in northern Syria.

A man linked to the Islamic State in Syria remains stranded in the buffer zone on the Greek-Turkish border, Kathimerini understands.
The man, who is said to hold US citizenship, appears to have been expelled by Turkey. However, Greek authorities have refused to allow him to enter Greece.
The man remains under the purview of Turkish authorities.

Turkey on Nov. 11 started a program of repatriation of foreign ISIL fighters, with a U.S. citizen deported in the early morning and a German and a Denmark national were to be deported on the same day, Interior Ministry spokesman İsmail Çataklı told Anadolu Agency.

Less than 1,000 U.S. service members will remain in northern Syria to ensure the lasting defeat of the ISIL terror group, U.S. Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark Milley said in remarks aired on Nov. 10.

Turkey will start extraditing captured ISIL terrorists on Nov. 11 to their home countries, according to Turkey's interior minister.

"I think we have a serious problem," said Edina Becirevic, associate professor of security studies at Sarajevo's Faculty of Criminal Justice, Criminology and Security Studies, who has studied the Salafi phenomenon in Bosnia extensively. 

"We, as a society, must deal with the fact that Salafi influencers promote intolerance, exclusion of women and religious superiority."

The former ISIL leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was killed with military and intelligence cooperation between Turkey and the U.S., the Turkish defense minister has said, noting that he did not know Baghdadi was in Syria's Idlib before the operation.

The wife of the late ISIL leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi revealed "a lot of information" about the group's "inner workings" after she was captured last year, a Turkish official told AFP.

Turkish police detained 17 foreign nationals on Nov. 7 suspected of being linked to the terrorist organization ISIL in the capital Ankara.

The U.S. knows "almost nothing" about the man who has succeeded Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi to lead the ISIL terrorist organization, a senior State Department official said on Nov. 6.