BEIRUT (AP) — The United States has repatriated 11 of its citizens from sprawling camps in northeastern Syria that house tens of thousands of family members of suspected Islamic State militants, the U.S. State Department said Tuesday.
The repatriation was the largest Washington has carried out from the camps to date, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement. Five of the 11 citizens brought back were children, and one non-U.S. citizen child -- the 9-year-old sibling of one of the other children -- was also brought with them.
As part of the same operation, the U.S. facilitated the repatriation of 11 other camp residents, eight of them children, to Canada, the Netherlands and Finland, the statement said.
Although the pace of repatriations has picked up -- neighboring Iraq recently returned hundreds of its citizens -- many countries remain reluctant to bring back citizens from the al Hol and al Roj camps, which now hold about 30,000 people from more than 60 countries, most of them children.
The camps are run by local authorities affiliated with the U.S.-backed, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces. The SDF and its allies, including U.S.-led coalition forces, defeated the Islamic State group in Syria in 2019, ending its self-proclaimed Islamic “caliphate” that had ruled over a large swath of territory straddling Iraq and Syria.
Human rights groups have regularly reported on what they describe as inhumane living conditions and abuses in the camps and in detention centers where suspected IS members are housed.
“The only durable solution to the humanitarian and security crisis” in the facilities “is for countries to repatriate, rehabilitate, reintegrate, and where appropriate, ensure accountability for wrongdoing,” Blinken said in the statement.
FILE - Kurdish forces patrol al-Hol camp, which houses families of members of the Islamic State group in Hasakeh province, Syria, on April 19, 2023. The United States has repatriated 11 of its citizens from sprawling camps in northeastern Syria that house tens of thousands of family members of suspected Islamic State militants, the U.S. State Department said Tuesday May 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Baderkhan Ahmad, File)
FILE - Women shop in the marketplace at al-Hol camp, home to families of Islamic State fighters, in Hasakeh province, Syria, on March 31, 2019. The United States has repatriated 11 of its citizens from sprawling camps in northeastern Syria that house tens of thousands of family members of suspected Islamic State militants, the U.S. State Department said Tuesday May 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo, File)
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — A helicopter carrying Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi suffered a “hard landing” on Sunday, Iranian state media reported, without immediately elaborating.
Raisi was traveling in Iran’s East Azerbaijan province. State TV said the incident happened near Jolfa, a city on the border with with the nation of Azerbaijan, some 600 kilometers (375 miles) northwest of the Iranian capital, Tehran.
Traveling with Raisi were Iran's Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian, the governor of Iran's East Azerbaijan province and other officials, the state-run IRNA news agency reported. One local government official used the word “crash” to describe the incident, but he acknowledged to an Iranian newspaper that he had yet to reach the site himself.
Neither IRNA nor state TV offered any information on Raisi’s condition.
Rescuers were attempting to reach the site, state TV said, but had been hampered by poor weather conditions. There had been heavy rain and fog reported with some wind. IRNA called the area a "forest."
Raisi had been in Azerbaijan early Sunday to inaugurate a dam with Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev. The dam is the third one that the two nations built on the Aras River. The visit came despite chilly relations between the two nations, including over a gun attack on Azerbaijan's Embassy in Tehran in 2023, and Azerbaijan's diplomatic relations with Israel, which Iran's Shiite theocracy views as its main enemy in the region.
Iran flies a variety of helicopters in the country, but international sanctions make it difficult to obtain parts for them. Its military air fleet also largely dates back to before the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Raisi, 63, is a hard-liner who formerly led the country’s judiciary. He is viewed as a protégé of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and some analysts have suggested he could replace the 85-year-old leader after his death or resignation from the role.
Raisi won Iran's 2021 presidential election, a vote that saw the lowest turnout in the Islamic Republic’s history. Raisi is sanctioned by the U.S. in part over his involvement in the mass execution of thousands of political prisoners in 1988 at the end of the bloody Iran-Iraq war.
Under Raisi, Iran now enriches uranium at nearly weapons-grade levels and hampers international inspections. Iran has armed Russia in its war on Ukraine, as well as launched a massive drone-and-missile attack on Israel amid its war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. It also has continued arming proxy groups in the Mideast, like Yemen's Houthi rebels and Lebanon's Hezbollah.
Associated Press writer Nasser Karimi in Tehran, Iran, contributed to this report.
FILE- Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi places his hands on his heart as a gesture of respect to the crowd during the funeral ceremony of the victims of Wednesday's bomb explosion in the city of Kerman about 510 miles (820 kms) southeast of the capital Tehran, Iran, Jan. 5, 2024. A helicopter carrying Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi suffered a “hard landing” on Sunday, May 19, 2024, Iranian state television reported, without immediately elaborating. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi, File)
