In a complex operation involving US agencies, Kuwait, and pro-US Kurdish fighters, the US repatriated 11 US citizens, including five minors, as well as a nine-year-old non-US sibling of an American, secretary of state Antony Blinken said.
The US in the same operation facilitated the repatriation of six Canadian citizens, four Dutch citizens, and one Finnish citizen, among them eight children, he said.
“This is the largest single repatriation of US citizens from northeast Syria to date,” Blinken said in a statement.
“The only durable solution to the humanitarian and security crisis in the displaced persons camps and detention facilities in northeast Syria is for countries to repatriate, rehabilitate, reintegrate and, where appropriate, ensure accountability for wrongdoing,” he said.
The US has long pushed European governments to bring back nationals who went to fight for the IS group – or their children.
Most European countries have done so but slowly and despite initial reservations, especially in countries with a history of jihadist attacks at home such as France and the UK.
Blinken did not identify the people who were repatriated.
The New York Times, quoting unidentified sources, said they included an American woman, whose Turkish husband apparently took the family to IS territory and was later killed, and their nine children.
The Star Tribune of Minneapolis reported last week that a man who joined IS but then became a valuable informant was seeking the repatriation of two sons, one apparently a non-US citizen, to be raised by their grandparents in Minnesota.
The repatriations remain controversial in the US as well, with the administration of former president Donald Trump in one prominent case insisting that a young woman seeking to return was not legitimately a US citizen.
The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) helped US forces crush the IS group.
Five years after the extremists were ousted from their last territory, the SDF still holds more than 56,000 detainees with alleged or perceived links to the IS group.
Kurdish authorities have been asking foreign governments to repatriate their nationals but Western governments have responded slowly for fear of domestic backlash.