Lebanese authorities are examining claims from recent reports alleging the country faces renewed security risks from dozens of suspected extremists and their families who may attempt to enter from Syria in the coming weeks and months. A security source told The Daily Star that Lebanese security and judicial bodies have expressed concern that the country’s borders may be vulnerable to fleeing extremists, based on reports gathered from Western intelligence organizations and European embassies in Beirut.
The source said the reports single out Syria’s Al-Hawl refugee camp as a focus of concern.
The Kurdish-controlled camp is situated near Syria’s northeastern border with Iraq and holds over 70,000 people, mostly women and children under the age of 15, and many of them foreign nationals.
In recent months, thousands of wives and children of Daesh (ISIS) militants from Syrian villages south of the camp arrived after they were displaced by Kurdish-led attacks against extremist enclaves.
“Tens of thousands of [the camp’s inhabitants] carry foreign passports. The majority are from European countries including Sweden, France and Britain in addition to several hundred of Australian and Indonesian origin,” the reports claimed, according to a source familiar with the matter. Authorities are also concerned that dozens of Lebanese citizens count among their number. The reports express fear that many Lebanese citizens are wives and children of Daesh fighters still holed up in remaining extremist pockets or killed in battles with Kurdish forces.
Countries that suspect their nationals may still be in Al-Hawl camp are pursuing matters through their embassies in Lebanon, according to the information. These embassies have recently warned of dozens of extremists fleeing from Syria into Lebanon or paying large sums of money to “mafias” willing to facilitate their entry. In such cases, the embassies reportedly suspect individuals are transferred to and hidden in Palestinian refugee camps, the information indicated.
Lebanese security and judicial bodies have expressed fear that the decision by some countries to strip foreign fighters and their families of citizenship is a sign that those countries are shirking their legal duties in prosecuting individuals for crimes committed abroad.
While Military Prosecutor Peter Germanos said he believed the military judiciary had done all it could to deal with cases involving individuals belonging to extremist organizations, he said some returnees might end up getting off lightly, based on previous cases.
“The military judiciary does not have evidence of terrorism or crimes against humanity committed in Syria. [Therefore] there is a fear that some dangerous individuals have been awarded light sentences because of a lack of evidence against them,” he told The Daily Star.
The reports’ conclusions come in light of Syria’s unstable security situation and poor economy amid an 8-year-old civil war.
This article has been adapted from its original source.
