Yahoo News UK special forces may help British orphans escape Syria
Britain will consider repatriating orphans and unaccompanied children in north-east Syria if they are alerted to their presence by local military or aid agencies.
Home Office officials said the UK would assist British orphans trapped in Syria after the Turkish invasion, reversing a previous policy that children had to be taken out of the country before they might get any help.
Officials would not say exactly how children might be extracted from the country, implying that SAS or other special forces, still understood to be based in the region, could be involved in the repatriations.
They said children thought to be British would be assessed on a case-by-case basis once removed from Syria and only orphans and unaccompanied children would be eligible to be brought back to the UK.
The shift in policy comes after a BBC reporting team found three English-speaking orphans aged 10 or under in a Syria camp over the weekend. The children are believed to have been taken by their parents to live under Islamic State five years ago.
Who is in control in north-eastern Syria?
Until Turkey launched its offensive there on 9 October, the region was controlled by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which comprises militia groups representing a range of ethnicities, though its backbone is Kurdish.
Since the Turkish incursion, the SDF has lost much of its territory and appears to be losing its grip on key cities. On 13 October, Kurdish leaders agreed to allow Syrian regime forces to enter some cities to protect them from being captured by Turkey and its allies. The deal effectively hands over control of huge swathes of the region to Damascus.
That leaves north-eastern Syria divided between Syrian regime forces, Syrian opposition militia and their Turkish allies, and areas still held by the SDF – for now.
How did the SDF come to control the region?
Before the SDF was formed in 2015, the Kurds had created their own militias who mobilised during the Syrian civil war to defend Kurdish cities and villages and carve out what they hoped would eventually at least become a semi-autonomous province.
In late 2014, the Kurds were struggling to fend off an Islamic State siege of Kobane, a major city under their control. With US support, including arms and airstrikes, the Kurds managed to beat back Isis and went on to win a string of victories against the radical militant group. Along the way the fighters absorbed non-Kurdish groups, changed their name to the SDF and grew to include 60,000 soldiers.
Why does Turkey oppose the Kurds?
For years, Turkey has watched the growing ties between the US and SDF with alarm. Significant numbers of the Kurds in the SDF were also members of the People’s Protection Units (YPG), an offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers’ party (PKK) that has fought an insurgency against the Turkish state for more than 35 years in which as many as 40,000 people have died. The PKK initially called for independence and now demands greater autonomy for Kurds inside Turkey.
Turkey claims the PKK has continued to wage war on the Turkish state, even as it has assisted in the fight against Isis. The PKK is listed as a terrorist group by Turkey, the US, the UK, Nato and others and this has proved awkward for the US and its allies, who have chosen to downplay the SDF’s links to the PKK, preferring to focus on their shared objective of defeating Isis.
What are Turkey’s objectives on its southern border?
Turkey aims firstly to push the SDF away from its border, creating a 20-mile (32km) buffer zone that would have been jointly patrolled by Turkish and US troops until Trump’s recent announcement that American soldiers would withdraw from the region.
Erdoğan has also said he would seek to relocate more than 1 million Syrian refugees in this “safe zone”, both removing them from his country (where their presence has started to create a backlash) and complicating the demographic mix in what he fears could become an autonomous Kurdish state on his border.
How would a Turkish incursion impact on Isis?
Nearly 11,000 Isis fighters, including almost 2,000 foreigners, and tens of thousands of their wives and children, are being held in detention camps and hastily fortified prisons across north-eastern Syria.
SDF leaders have warned they cannot guarantee the security of these prisoners if they are forced to redeploy their forces to the frontlines of a war against Turkey. They also fear Isis could use the chaos of war to mount attacks to free their fighters or reclaim territory.
On 11 October, it was reported that at least five detained Isis fighters had escaped a prison in the region. Two days later, 750 foreign women affiliated to Isis and their children managed to break out of a secure annex in the Ain Issa camp for displaced people, according to SDF officials.
It is unclear which detention sites the SDF still controls and the status of the prisoners inside.
The eldest, Amira, 10, told the film crew that their parents and other immediate adult family members were killed in an air assault on Baghouz, the last Isis stronghold, which fell in March, and she wanted to return to the UK.
Save the Children, one of the few charities operating in north-east Syria, said the Home Office developments were a step in the right direction but more detail was required.
“For this to translate into a real change of policy, we need to know that the government is working on how to bring all British children to the UK while we still can, not just those featured in the media,” the charity said.
It is not clear how many British unaccompanied children remain in the crowded refugee camps in the Kurdish region of Syria. Some unofficial estimates put the figure at around 30.
Any child born to a Briton – whether inside or outside the UK – is a British citizen. Before the Turkish invasion the government had said it was too risky to try to attempt any rescue children with a legitimate claim.
When Shamima Begum was deprived of her UK citizenship in February, the British government said her infant son was still British. After the child died at a Syrian refugee camp at the age of three weeks, Jeremy Hunt, then foreign secretary, said it had been too dangerous for British officials to attempt to a rescue.
Opposition MPs questioned whether the change in stance would lead to more orphaned children getting help. Stephen Gethins, the SNP’s foreign affairs spokesman, said: “We know the UK government’s record on resettling refugees and vulnerable people leaves a lot to be desired. Beyond the rhetoric there is very little substance from the UK government.”
On Tuesday the foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, had hinted at a change of policy when, during an urgent debate on the Syrian crisis, he said: “We are looking at whether orphans and unaccompanied minors who bear UK nationality can be given safe passage to return to the UK.”
Further details were spelled out on Wednesday by the Home Office, which has been leading on repatriations from Syria.
The government does not want former Isis fighters and adult supporters to return to the UK, although around 450 are thought to have previously done so, and it is suggesting they could be put on trial in the region.
