Europe fails to tackle the repatriation of foreign fighters from Syria

By Federico Baccini, Futura D’Aprile, Kreshnik Gashi

Brussels – In March 2025, the interim government in Damascus, led by President Ahmed al-Sharaa, signed an agreement with Mazloum Abdi, commander-in-chief of the Syrian Democratic Forces, to reunify Syria. Nearly four months later, the process is still ongoing, and many issues remain unresolved.

One major concern is the fate of ISIS foreign fighters and their families. Both groups are currently held in prisons and camps controlled by the Autonomous Administration in the north-east, but managing these facilities poses serious challenges. The prisons require security standards that the Autonomous Administration cannot always maintain, and over the years, several jihadists have managed to escape. The camps, meanwhile, are places where Islamic State ideology continues to thrive, passed on to children by women who remain loyal to the Caliphate.

Once the country is reunified, control of the camps and prisons is expected to transfer to the al-Sharaa government. Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan has also addressed this issue, reaffirming Turkey’s support for Damascus — not only in operations against ISIS, but also in the future management of detention centres housing former fighters, women, and minors.

But what should be done with these jihadists — and more critically, with the families who remain stuck in north-eastern Syria? According to researcher Tanya Mehra, they should be repatriated. “So far, only a handful of countries have repatriated their citizens; the only country that has been relatively active in this regard is Iraq.”

Yet among the thousands of people held in al-Hol and al-Roj are European nationals. One example is Meriem Rehaily, a 28-year-old Italian woman who travelled to Syria in 2014 and was sentenced in absentia in 2017 to four years in prison for joining a terrorist organisation.

epatriation, Mehra argues, is essential because Damascus lacks a functioning criminal justice system. In the past, there was discussion of setting up an international tribunal to try at least the fighters, but the proposal never materialised. Moreover, such a tribunal would be prohibitively expensive and capable of prosecuting only those with major responsibilities.

For this reason, repatriation remains the most realistic solution. “Some European countries are proceeding, particularly in the case of women and children,” Mehra says. “But overall, they are shifting responsibility and refusing to take ownership of their own citizens.”

The role of the EU

At the EU level, responsibility for criminal justice, reintegration, and internal security lies with individual Member States, while the EU plays a supporting and coordinating role. These are shared competences in areas such as security, judicial cooperation, and border control.

The EU Counter-Terrorism Strategy includes various programmes and agencies that work alongside national authorities. The EU Counter-Terrorism Coordinator leads strategic efforts; the European Counter-Terrorism Centre at Europol and Eurojust facilitate operational and judicial cooperation; and the Radicalisation Awareness Network (RAN) promotes deradicalisation practices in member states.

However, obtaining concrete information on actual coordination efforts in Brussels regarding the return and reintegration of European foreign fighters remains extremely difficult. A lack of responses to direct questions—or repeated referrals to the responsibility of national authorities, as was the case with the spokespersons for the EU Counter-Terrorism Coordinator—suggests that the issue is either low on the Brussels agenda or absent altogether.

“In the months following Assad’s fall, the presence of former foreign fighters in the ranks of the new Syrian army caused friction between Damascus and Western governments,” explains Silvia Carenzi, Associate Research Fellow at ISPI. “However, after the al-Sharaa–Trump meeting in Riyadh, the US and other countries appeared to accept the integration of foreign fighters as a pragmatic approach to keeping them under the new administration’s control.”

The issue remains important to President Trump, who has repeatedly stressed that Syria must take steps to prevent an ISIS resurgence and assume responsibility for camps and detention centres in the north-east. The urgency has grown in recent weeks, following a statement by Syria’s interior minister that two members of the cell responsible for the Mar Elias church attack in Damascus came from the al-Hol camp.

“This underlines just how urgent the repatriation of foreign residents and the development of effective rehabilitation policies have become,” Carenzi concludes.

An uncertain future

But would EU countries be capable of repatriating and reintegrating at least women and minors into society? According to Claudio Bertolotti, an expert on radicalisation at ISPI and a member of the EU Knowledge Hub on the Prevention of Radicalisation, the answer is no. “EU countries have adopted a closed approach because no reintegration model for radicalised individuals has proven effective so far. Several methods have been tested, but none has produced convincing results.”

In Italy, Bertolotti notes, there is no structured deradicalisation programme, as the only bill addressing the issue stalled in the Senate during the 17th and 18th legislatures. “Today, the conversation has shifted from deradicalisation to preventing violent behaviour. Efforts are focused on stopping hatred from turning into action.”

He also emphasises that radicalised individuals represent only a small proportion of their broader communities and that those radicalised during adolescence do not necessarily remain so over time. This highlights the need for targeted interventions in schools. “Switzerland, for example, is investing in training for vocational college teachers to help them identify and respond to early signs of radicalisation.”

Beyond the EU, Kosovo has emerged as a rare success story in the repatriation and reintegration of women and minors from Syria. Following the collapse of the Islamic State, Kosovo began repatriation procedures in 2019 and had returned 253 citizens by 2022. According to authorities, those repatriated did not pose a societal risk, and their reintegration was seen as a key measure to prevent the spread of violent extremism.

To facilitate this process, Kosovo created a dedicated department that involved social workers, school staff, psychologists, and security services. It also provided economic, psychological, and linguistic support, particularly for children born or raised in Syria. Data from the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network indicate that the programme has been successful, with the vast majority of those convicted of terrorism offences not reoffending.

Although the EU and UN missions in Kosovo have expressed concerns about the leniency of some terrorism-related sentences, the overall repatriation programme has been positively received.

“This article was produced as part of the Thematic Networks of PULSE, a European initiative that supports transnational journalistic collaborations.”