Dozens of supporters of the Islamic State terrorist organisation could soon be released from Syrian prisons, terrorism expert Guido Steinberg warns.

The fall of Syrian ruler Bashar al-Assad, puts Germany at risk of a return of Islamic State fighters currently being held in Syrian prisons, according to terrorism expert Guido Steinberg.

„There is a very real risk that next year the situation will become more precarious and terrorists will be released from prisons,”

the expert from the Berlin-based German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP) told Stern magazine. Joe Biden has pledged to deploy US troops against the Islamic State jihadist militia, however, Donald Trump could withdraw those forces as early as the end of January.

„In Kurdish prisons under US control, there are about 9,000 fighters of whom about 2,000 are foreigners,”

Steinberg said. Among these foreign fighters are about 30 who came from Germany, including about 25 German citizens. „That’s quite a lot,” Steinberg noted. The Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and its allied militias seized the Syrian capital Damascus on Sunday, after a major offensive that began on 27 November and toppled the decades-long rule of Assad.

Europeans are worried

While Syria and the diaspora celebrate the fall of Bashar al-Assad, there is growing concern in Europe about the potential security implications. The change of power in Syria, put in motion by Islamist rebels, is heightening concerns in European capitals that jihadists could regroup and increase the already high risk of attacks. Alex Younger, former British intelligence chief, has warned that the threat to Europe posed by Islamist fighters set loose is significant and extreme. Politicians also fear that Islamists with European citizenship could return.

Angela Eagle, British migration secretary said the return of British Islamists was a serious concern. Since the start of the civil war in Syria in 2011, thousands of Europeans have joined the jihad in the region, most of them from France, Germany and the UK.

For the governments in London, Berlin and Paris, the potential threat of a resurgence of Islamist violence in Europe comes at a bad time, as Europeans are growing increasingly resentful of rising immigration. Many citizens have not forgotten the recent attacks committed by people of migrant backgrounds.

The results are clear: the Labour government in the UK is tumbling in the opinion polls, the French government recently collapsed and the German coalition government has broken up. Such volatile circumstances may prove to be enabling for the jihadists.

Until its downfall in 2017, the Islamic State was the largest Islamist group in Syria and Iraq, before being defeated by the international coalition and, above all, by Kurdish fighters of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). Tens of thousands of jihadis, many of them Europeans, were held in prisons and internment camps in northeastern Syria.

It has also recently emerged that European Islamists were involved in the events surrounding the overthrow of Assad. The British Migration Secretary Angela Eagle stressed that the intelligence agencies are closely monitoring the situation. British Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch called on the prime minister to revoke British citizenship from jihadists and Assad supporters.

In Germany and France, to prevent individuals from becoming stateless, citizenship can only be revoked in the case of dual citizenship, while in the United Kingdom, there is no such stipulation. One of the best-known examples is the case of 25-year-old Shamima Begum, who was stripped of her British citizenship in 2019 after joining the Islamic State. The British authorities are still refusing to allow her to return and she is currently in a camp in north-eastern Syria.

French and Germans are terrified

The French government is also closely monitoring the situation unfolding in Syria, with President Emmanuel Macron stating the need to prevent the resurgence of terrorist organisations capable of creating regional instability or preparing plans of attack. This threat is already present. Just last week an attack in France was foiled, in which one of the perpetrators had previously declared his support for the fight against Bashar al-Assad’s regime. Islamist violence was back on the agenda in Germany this week, after security forces arrested three men on Sunday for allegedly plotting an Islamist attack.