16-year-old American who fought on the side of terrorists was detained in Syria

A 16-year-old American teenager who fought on the side of the Islamic State (ISIS) was detained in Syria, reports New York Times.

Фото: Depositphotos

If the teenager turns out to be a US citizen, he will become the first American minor arrested abroad for fighting on the side of a terrorist group.

His arrest follows 34-year-old former Texas teacher Warren Christopher Clark, who was detained on Sunday. The two are among five detained US citizens fighting for the Islamic State who were captured alive on the front lines. Information about this is posted in a database maintained by George Washington University as part of its anti-extremism program.

The fighters of the Syrian Democratic Forces, who announced the arrest of the boy, said that he was among the eight foreign militants who were detained this week in a small area in north-eastern Syria, which is still controlled by ISIL militants. The rest were citizens of Germany, Russia, Ukraine, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.

US officials did not immediately comment on this message. A senior lecturer in criminology at Kent University, Simon Cotti, argues that the detainee may be from Trinidad. He stated that his name is similar to the name of a teenager from a database that tracks ISIS militants from Trinidad.

The seizure of a teenager was announced three weeks after US President Donald Trump объявил about the victory over the terrorists and ordered the withdrawal of 2 from thousands of American soldiers from Syria.

While US officials estimated, 295 Americans either joined or tried to join the militants in Iraq and Syria. It is not known how many of them actually joined and successfully reached the battle zone.

The counter-extremism program's database identified only 55 American citizens who joined the Islamic State. According to the Paris-based Center for the Analysis of Terrorism, this is not much, since at least 1400 people joined from France.

The arrested 16-year-old was the only American minor caught on the battlefield. But other American teens have been found in territory controlled by ISIS.

A 15-year-old girl from Kansas was repatriated from Syria after her father forced her to go to the war zone. She was forcibly married to an ISIS militant, while she was pregnant during her arrest.

Several other American teens were arrested for attempting to carry out attacks on behalf of militants in the United States. Their detention turned out to be very problematic due to the fact that they are minors.

For example, in South Carolina, 16-year-old Zakaria Abdin was accused of planning an attack on military personnel on behalf of the Islamic State. He initially pleaded guilty to a firearms offense and was sentenced to one year in juvenile detention. But when he was paroled and turned 18, he tried to leave for Syria. The Justice Department then charged him with providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization.

In New Jersey, 17-year-old Santos Colon in 2017 pled guilty to conspiracy to kill Father Francis during a mass in Philadelphia two years earlier. He was released pending a court sentence, he faces up to 15 years in prison. As for the teenager detained in Syria, it is one thing to state that he fought on the side of ISIS, but another thing is to prove it in court. Therefore, the authorities may well decide not to pursue him, given the age.

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