(NPR) A family of 10 American citizens who were held for years in a Syrian refugee camp and detention center for relatives of Islamic State militants are now back in the United States, the result of complex negotiations that also returned two young sons of a Minnesota man who pleaded guilty to supporting the ISIS terrorist group.
As an additional part of that coordinated international effort, Canada and two European countries — Finland and the Netherlands — this week brought home 11 of their citizens held in those camps, the majority of them children.
In total, 23 people, including 14 minors, were repatriated to their home countries or resettled in other countries, according to the U.S. State Department, which led the operation. It concluded early Tuesday morning, when a U.S. military aircraft landed at John F. Kennedy International Airport carrying 50-year-old Brandy J. Salman and her nine children, as well as the 7- and 9-year-old sons of a 27-year-old man who grew up in a Minneapolis suburb.
