In the shadows, and at detention centres, the fight against the Islamic State continues in northeast Syria

It is past midnight and a deep darkness surrounds Deir ez-Zor, a city on the banks of the Euphrates River, where a counterterrorism raid is about to begin.

A Syrian Democratic Forces convoy rolls and then stops. Commandos leave their trucks and armoured vehicles, wearing camouflage uniforms, balaclavas and headlamps. Assault rifles at the ready, they form a perimeter around a house and storm it. Female soldiers separate out the women and the children, the youngest of whom cry in the long shadows cast by lights on the military vehicles.

The soldiers lead away their target, a man in his 30s whose face was pressed against a cinderblock wall as they handcuffed him. He is taken to a nearby military base where he is interrogated on accusations that he is a member of the Islamic State.

Globe and Mail photographer Goran Tomasevic documented the arrest in April, gaining a rare look into how a counterterrorism battle continues today in Kurdish-controlled territory in Syria. The Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria uses SDF forces to keep order in the emerging statelet, where authorities are struggling, especially with vast carceral institutions within territory they tenuously control.

This is the aftermath of the war against the Islamic State, a conflict that first exploded into public view a decade ago against the backdrop of the Syrian civil war.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad survived attempts to oust his regime thanks to the backing of Russia and Iran. But today he only controls about two-thirds of its former territory. Insurgent groups retain control of about 10 per cent and the Kurds have about 25 per cent.

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The Islamic State jihadists used to have a lot of Syrian territory as well. In 2014, their leadership announced that they had created a caliphate out of the anarchy in Syria and Iraq. This onslaught became a rallying cry heard by far-flung global extremists who travelled – including from Canada – to a land where the militants promised to rule under uncompromising, literalist interpretations of Islamic scripture.

A military coalition led by U.S. airpower and aided on the ground by Iraqi and Kurdish fighters ended the Islamic State’s claim to territory in 2019. Deprived of land, surviving militants were captured or forced underground. Their wives and children fled the bombing runs and many ended up in massive displaced-persons camps in northeastern Syria.

A rump of U.S. soldiers remains on the ground today, providing local forces with equipment, training, intelligence and airpower in order to keep out the Islamic State, also known as ISIS.

“The SDF remains an effective and credible partner force in maintaining the enduring defeat of ISIS,” the American military said in an April 15 statement that announced the arrest of the Deir ez-Zor suspect. The military alleged that the man is “known for leading several ISIS cells that managed the coordination of weapons, improvised explosive devices and the collection of funds.” The U.S. military did not respond to e-mails asking about what has happened to the man since.

Signs of the Islamic State are everywhere in the region. In February, four U.S. soldiers were killed in a helicopter raid that also killed a senior Islamic State leader. On July 7, the U.S. military announced that it killed another Islamic State leader in an air strike.

With extremist operatives still at large and looking for reinforcements, the detainee populations of northeastern Syria can be a magnet for violence. In January, 2022, car bombs exploded in the city of Hasaka during a week-and-a-half-long jailbreak attempt, in a massive and sustained attack by Islamic State fighters that was thwarted by the SDF with the help of U.S. military jets. The fighting left scores of security forces, extremist fighters and detainees dead.

The Islamic State is a threat within the camps, as the U.S.-backed SDF discovered when it conducted a three-week clearing operation in the al-Hol displaced-persons camp in late 2022. Officials “arrested approximately 300 ISIS operatives, confiscated 25 kilograms of explosives and 25 hand grenades,” the U.S. military said in a statement. “During this operation, the SDF freed six women who were found chained and tortured by ISIS operatives. Some of these six women were captured as children and held by ISIS for years.”

At the time, the displaced-persons camps had a total population of nearly 60,000 and the jails held 10,000 suspected Islamic State fighters. In response, the United States urged global leaders to reconsider their reliance on local forces in northeastern Syria warehousing people indefinitely.

“ISIS knows that prison breaks work,” Ian Moss, a U.S. State Department counterterrorism official, said in a speech last fall in Hungary. Dreading the prospect of repeat attacks, he implored an audience of allied international officials to “repatriate, rehabilitate, reintegrate” their nationals from northeastern Syria, and to charge them under domestic terrorism laws if necessary.

“The most direct pathway to the re-emergence of ISIS Core is the population of detained ISIS fighters in northeast Syria,” he warned.

The pleas seem to have had an effect. Earlier this year Iraq announced it was reclaiming thousands of its citizens and urged other countries to follow suit.

Over the years, the Canadian government had been accused of resisting calls from civil-liberties groups to repatriate several dozen Canadian nationals. But in the past year, Ottawa has changed course. In an e-mail to The Globe, Global Affairs Canada spokesman John Babcock said Canada has repatriated 23 women and children from northeastern Syria in the past 10 months. This includes four Canadians brought home last October, 14 in April and another five this month.

Mr. Babcock did not release numbers about how many Canadians remain in the northeastern Syria region. “Due to privacy and operational security considerations, we cannot comment on specific cases or potential future actions,” he said. The RCMP has announced that it has initiated terrorism-related proceedings against some of the detained women returned to Canada.

On July 7, the U.S. government publicly thanked Canada for being among the countries who have helped empty the displaced-persons camps over the past year.

“Canada’s repatriation of its nationals – two women and three children – from Roj displaced persons camp yesterday is a welcome effort in addressing the ongoing humanitarian and security challenges in northeast Syria,” the U.S. State Department said in a statement.

One Canadian lawmaker said there still may be more than 20 Canadians languishing in the region. “It is unclear whether all are detained,” Senator Kim Pate said. She plans to go to the region on a fact-finding humanitarian mission in August. The regional authorities “have confirmed that our delegation is welcome and will be facilitated,” she said.

The U.S. says that much more work remains to be done by countries with citizens in the camps. “Approximately 10,000 individuals from more than 60 countries outside Syria and Iraq remain in the al-Hol and Roj displaced persons camps in northeast Syria,” the State Department said July 7 in a statement. “Repatriation is the only durable solution for this population, most of whom are vulnerable children under the age of 12.”

The number of children in camps concerns authorities in the region, who worry that the Islamic State ideology is being passed to the youth. In northeastern Syria, prepubescent and teenaged boys are being taken out of the displaced-persons camps for fear they are being inculcated.

Some detained teens end up in special facilities where the Kurdish administration says they are being given exposure to sports, music and skills training. Critics, however, point out that this is still a form of custody, and that many teens remain warehoused in the prisons for adult males.

“The pattern of forcibly removing boys who reach the ages of 10 or 12 from the camps, separating them from their mothers and siblings and taking them to unknown locations is completely unlawful,” a group of United Nations rights experts said in a January statement. “There are also over 850 boys deprived of liberty in prisons and other detention facilities, including so-called rehabilitation centres, throughout North-east Syria.”

The UN points out that most of the boys have been detained since they were seven years old.