(Reuters) Denmark will fast-track legislation allowing people with dual citizenship who have gone abroad to fight for militant groups like Islamic State to be stripped of their Danish nationality, Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said on Monday.
European states are trying to accelerate a plan to shift thousands of foreign Islamic State militants out of Syrian prison camps and into Iraq, as a fresh conflict in Syria has raised the risk of jihadists escaping or returning home.
“There is a risk that the Kurdish-controlled IS-camps in the border area will collapse and that foreign warriors with Danish citizenship will move toward Denmark,” Frederiksen said in a statement.
Authorities believe at least 158 people from Denmark have joined militant Islamist groups in Syria or Iraq since 2012, about 27 of whom remain in the conflict zone. Twelve of these are believed to be imprisoned.
