U.S. Institute of Peace experts discuss the latest foreign policy issues from around the world in On Peace, a brief weekly collaboration with SiriusXM's POTUS Channel 124.

Transcript

Laura Coates: Joining us now is Osama Gharizi, the senior program advisor for Iraq at the United States Institute of Peace. Good morning, Osama. How are you?

Osama Gharizi: Good morning, how are you? Good to be with you today.

Laura Coates: Thank you for joining us today. There was a D-ISIS ministerial meeting here in Washington, and I think a lot of people may not have been aware of or know exactly what it was about. Could you just give us a little bit of information as to what has recently taken place?

Osama Gharizi: Yeah, absolutely. The Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS is an international coalition that was established in 2014 to, as is entitled, to defeat ISIS. So this is a global coalition led by the United States and other countries. It's comprised of around 86 countries around the world, and it's really meant to, its focus is on going after ISIS. And you know, ISIS isn't really in the news these days. There are other global conflicts that are taking precedent, and it's true that ISIS no longer controls the vast territories that it once had at its peak between 2014 and 2016. And the coalition forces led by the U.S. and other national partners like the Iraqi government and the Syrian Democratic Forces have successfully dismantled its territorial caliphate. But that doesn't mean ISIS is not still on the scene. Although they're weakened, ISIS still remains on the scene. And it's more of a decentralized insurgent group these days, with sleeper cells and factions active in Iraq and Syria and other countries around the world. So the goal of the ministerial meeting that took place was really meant to, you know, highlight the issue, to reaffirm the coalition support on defeating ISIS, not just as a group and an entity, but also dealing with the factors that gave rise to extremism and to ISIS.

Laura Coates: As you point out, it's still very much remnant, it still exists. And they are, I understand, exploiting some of the fragile security situations in Iraq and Syria, in these border areas for the two countries, particularly as what's going on is more in the peripheral than the focus of what's happening obviously in Ukraine or Lebanon, or with Iran and Gaza and Israel. Are they exploiting the turned attention?

Osama Gharizi: Yeah, absolutely. I think, that given, unfortunately, the rising conflicts around the world, the same amount of attention in terms of both resources they're not really being given to this problem set anymore. And I think partly that helps explain some of the security gaps that arise. And really ISIS is, when you think about Iraq and Syria, it's really that the remnants are found in more rural areas, more areas on the periphery, as you mentioned, away from urban centers, areas where the state isn't strong, in Iraq's case for example, or doesn't have a full reach. So these areas are where really ISIS flourishes. And just in August, U.S. forces and Iraqi forces led a raid, killing around I think 15 or 16 ISIS fighters in Anbar Province in the western area. What the western area of the province tends to, these border areas tend to be less governable and therefore there's more security gaps that the group can maneuver in and hide in. And this is where a lot of the security tension is focused on these days.

Laura Coates: Where is the group's reach these days? I mean, is it still, obviously, you said it’s decentralized. There are sleeper cells and factions that are active in places like Iraq, Syria and other regions. But their reach extends beyond, say, the Middle East, right?

Osama Gharizi: Absolutely. The group's influence definitely extends beyond the Middle East. It has affiliates in Africa, South Asia, Southeast Asia, its ideology continues to inspire groups like Boko Haram in Nigeria. You have ISIS-K in Afghanistan. That group has also conducted some high profile and deadly attacks in recent months and years. So its reach is still globally. And I think coming out of the ministerial meeting, a lot of the funding that came to combat ISIS militarily is really focused on Sub-Saharan Africa where the where the group really has more traction militarily, as opposed to Iraq and Syria. While the group still remains active in rural areas, it's not the same threat militarily as it is in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Laura Coates: I'm hearing a lot about repatriation and displacement camps as well, particularly those that are located at the Syrian-Iraqi border. What are these repatriation or displacement camps?

Osama Gharizi: Yeah, absolutely. I think this is probably the biggest problem set coming out of the legacy of ISIS. This human legacy of ISIS remains a big challenge for Iraq and Syria. You have a whole camp in Syria, which is a displacement camp that holds nearly 40,000 people. The majority of those in the camp are women and children. Of the 40,000 you have close to 18,000 Iraqis in the camp, and 58% of the Iraqi population are children. So the displacement, these are families who were displaced because of the conflict with ISIS and found shelter. Some of the women have affiliation to ISIS fighters, or they are accused of having affiliation with ISIS fighters, so there's some stigma attached to these women and children. But the repatriation process for Iraq started back in May 2021. That process is filled with a number of challenges. One, from the security perspective, these women need to be cleared and vetted to return back to Iraq. Once that occurs, they go back to a holding camp called Jeddah Rehabilitation Center, where the women and children are offered a number of services, vocational training, livelihood support, mental and social support, while being vetted again to return back to their areas of origin. So thus far, the Iraqi government has repatriated around 10,000 of its citizens from the whole camp, and that process is continuing.

Laura Coates: There's also, though, I understand, a slowdown in the wave of returns to Iraq from al-Hol and there is community opposition to those who are returning, and particularly a stigma on returning women.

Osama Gharizi: Yes, absolutely. And I think this is one of the hardest challenges, one of the biggest challenges facing the return, the reintegration process, is that many of these women have stigma attached to them. The communities from the areas of origin aren't necessarily accepting of these women and children. They fear that if these women return, somehow they're still connected to ISIS. ISIS will somehow use them to foment instability in their areas. There's also some fear that these women harbor extremist ideology still. There are concerns that they're not really aware of what the security arrangement will be once these families return back to their areas of origin. And on the flip side, the returning families themselves have security concerns. They feel that security actors aren't necessarily helping them but see them in a negative light. They fear that if they return back home, they'll be subjected to harassment and potential revenge acts of violence for crimes that were committed by other male relatives. So really focusing on repairing the relationship between the host communities, particularly those families that were directly victimized by ISIS also known as survivor families, and the returning families is really one of the things that needs to be focused on in this phase of reintegration.

Laura Coates: What role, if any, is the United States playing in overseeing some of these efforts? And obviously it's in the interest of the U.S. to continue to maintain some vigilance, if not just some but a lot of vigilance, over what's going on with ISIS.

Osama Gharizi: Absolutely. In terms of the return and reintegration process, the U.S. government plays a big role. A lot of resources that are given to the U.N. and international organizations working on this problem set come from the U.S., and just from the ministerial meeting last week, over $160 million were pledged by the U.S. government to the stabilization pledge drive for Iraq and many of that will go to helping revitalize these communities have been destroyed by ISIS, essentially laying a better foundation for their returnees when they do come home. U.S. government entities also support the International Organization for Migration, which is a U.N. agency that is working on the repatriation process from Jeddah 1, the camp where these women come back from al-Hol, back into their areas of origin.

Laura Coates: Thank you. This was really illuminating for us to hear more about this. Osama Gharizi, thank you so much for joining us, senior program advisor for Iraq at the United States Institute of Peace. Thank you for joining us this morning.

Osama Gharizi: Great, thanks for having me on.