Retired U.S. Army Gen. Wesley Clark cautioned on Newsmax on Thursday against the potential release of tens of thousands of detained Islamic State group members and their families in Syria, warning of global security implications.
"Well, I think the big concern really, that I have is the ISIS members who've been detained in Syria," the former NATO supreme allied commander told "American Agenda."
"There's tens of thousands of them. They've been in prison camps. They're being guarded by the Syrian Democratic Front, which is a Kurdish organization supported by the United States.
"And we've got our advisers there. We've got firepower behind it to protect them."
Clark outlined the fragile dynamics surrounding the detained Islamic State group members. The Syrian Democratic Forces, who currently oversee the camps, face pressure from various fronts, including Turkey and Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham, a faction gaining influence in Syria.
Clark warned that if the detainees were released, it could echo the chaos caused by the mass release of prisoners in Afghanistan before the U.S. pullout.
"There's no rehabilitation possible, and there's none attempted. They're just incarcerated. Let them loose, and it will have global implications," he said.
The conversation shifted to the steps a future administration should take to prevent the Islamic State group from regrouping and posing renewed threats.
"Well, I think the first thing is to get a grip on these people who are currently in prison or held in Syria. Don't let them free," Clark said.
"Now, how you do that working with Turkey, working with HTS, working with the Syrian Democratic Forces, with U.S. Forces there, might be a little premature to jerk everybody out of there right now. That's the sort of nest of this."
Clark called for enhanced surveillance.
"You've got to look at the websites and who's on those websites, where they're located, and who in the United States is talking to them. So we're going to have to have better internal surveillance of those websites, I think."
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Jim Thomas ✉
Jim Thomas is a writer based in Indiana. He holds a bachelor's degree in Political Science, a law degree from U.I.C. Law School, and has practiced law for more than 20 years.
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