ISIS detainees: US moves 6,000 from Syria to Iraq amid security concerns

EXCLUSIVE: It’s the kind of prison break officials say could have changed the region, and maybe even the world, overnight.

Nearly 6,000 ISIS detainees, described by a senior U.S. intelligence official as “the worst of the worst,” were being held in northern Syria as fighting and instability threatened the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, the guards charged with keeping militants locked up and preventing a feared ISIS resurgence. U.S. officials believed that if the prisons collapsed into chaos, the consequences would be immediate.

“If these 6,000 or so people came out and returned to the battlefield, it would essentially be the instant reconstitution of ISIS,” the senior intelligence official told Fox News Digital.

In an exclusive interview, the official took Fox News Digital step-by-step through the behind-the-scenes operation that moved thousands of ISIS detainees out of Syria and toward Iraqi authorities, describing a multi-agency scramble that unfolded over weeks, complete with intelligence warnings, rapid diplomacy and rapid military transport.

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ISIS wives and children remain in “fragile” Syrian detention camps under Damascus control while fighters are transferred to Iraq, leaving the detention crisis unresolved. (Santiago Montag/Anadolu via Getty Image)

The risk, the official explained, had been increasing for months. In late October, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard began assessing that the Syrian transition could descend into disorder and create conditions for a catastrophic jailbreak.

ODNI then sent the official to Syria and Iraq to begin preliminary discussions with the SDF and the Iraqi government on how to expel what the official repeatedly described as the most dangerous detainees before events overtook them.

These fears were heightened in early January when fighting broke out in Aleppo and began to spread eastward. Time is running out to avoid a catastrophe. “We have witnessed this serious crisis situation,” the official said.

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An Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) fighter waves an ISIL flag and a weapon on a street in the city of Mosul, June 23, 2014. (Reuters photo)

According to the source, ODNI oversaw daily coordination calls between agencies as the situation worsened. The official said Secretary of State Marco Rubio was “running the day-to-day” on policy considerations, while ODNI led a task force that kept CENTCOM, diplomats and intelligence officials aligned on the pressing issue: how to prevent nearly 6,000 ISIS fighters from falling into the fog of war.

The Iraqi government, the official said, understood the stakes. Baghdad had its own reasons for acting quickly, fearing that if thousands of detainees escaped, they would cross the border and revive a threat that Iraq still remembers in visceral terms.

The official described Iraq’s motivations bluntly: Leaders acknowledged that a mass breakout could force Iraq back into a “2014, ISIS is on our border again” situation.

The U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, the official said, played a central role in facilitating the diplomatic unfolding of what would become a major logistical undertaking.

Then came the physical elevator. The official credited increased CENTCOM resources for bringing the plan to fruition on the ground, saying “helicopter movement” and other means helped remove detainees in a short period of time.

“Through the efforts … moving helicopters, moving more resources, and then making it logistically possible, we were able to get these almost 6,000 people out in just a few weeks,” the official said.

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A view of Hol Camp, where families linked to the Islamic State group are being held, in Hasakah province, Syria, Wednesday, January 21, 2026. (Izz Aldien Alqasem/Anadolu via Getty Images)

The SDF, he explained, was securing the prisons, but its attention was being strained by fighting elsewhere, fueling U.S. fears that a single breach could escalate into a mass breakout. Eventually, the detainees were transported to Iraq, where they are now being held in a facility near Baghdad International Airport under Iraqi authority.

The next phase, the official said, is focused on identification and accountability. FBI teams are in Iraq biometrically registering detainees, the official said, while U.S. and Iraqi officials examine what intelligence can be declassified and used in prosecutions.

“What they were basically asking us to do was provide them with as much intelligence and information as we have on these individuals,” the official said. “So at the moment the priority is to biometrically identify these individuals.”

The official said the State Department is also pushing home countries to take responsibility for their detained citizens among the detainees.

“The State Department is currently doing outreach and encouraging all of these different countries to come and collect their warfighters,” he said.

Although the transfer focused only on ISIS fighters, the senior intelligence official said families detained in camps such as al-Hol were not part of the operation, leaving a major security and humanitarian problem unresolved.

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Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) fighters pose for a photo with the American flag on stage after an SDF victory ceremony announcing the defeat of ISIS in Baghouz, held at the Omer oil field on March 23, 2019 in Baghouz, Syria. (Chris McGrath/Getty Images)

The camps themselves were subject to separate agreements, the official said, and responsibilities were transferred as control on the ground evolved.

According to the official, the Syrian Democratic Forces and the Syrian government reached an agreement under which Damascus would retake the al-Hol camp, which houses thousands of women and children affiliated with ISIS.

“As you can see on social media, the al-Hol camp is emptying,” the official said, adding that “it appears that the Syrian government has decided to release them,” a scenario he called deeply troubling for regional security. “It’s very concerning.”

The families’ plight has long been seen by counterterrorism officials as one of the most complicated and unresolved elements of ISIS’s detention system. Many children grew up in camps after ISIS lost territorial control, and some are now approaching fighting age, raising fears of future radicalization and recruitment.

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Iraqi security forces pose with the ISIS flag they removed from Anbar University on July 26, 2015. The forces clashed with ISIS militants inside the compound. (Reuters)

For now, the official said, intelligence agencies are closely monitoring developments after a rapid operation that they say prevented thousands of experienced IS militants from immediately reentering the battlefield and potentially reviving the group’s fighting strength.

“This is rare good news coming from Syria,” the official concluded.