(AFP) European nations must take back hundreds of Islamic State group fighters captured in Syria, President Donald Trump said late Saturday, after a delay in announcing what he said would be the end of the “caliphate.”
Trump shocked allies in December by declaring the pullout of roughly 2,000 US troops who had been assisting local forces in Syria against IS, whose sole remaining territory is half a square kilometer (one-fifth of a square mile) in eastern Syria.
The pending US pullout set off a countdown for governments whose citizens, having joined IS, were captured by the US-backed, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
“The United States is asking Britain, France, Germany and other European allies to take back over 800 ISIS fighters that we captured in Syria and put them on trial,” Trump said in a tweet, using another acronym for IS.
