The US just captured a significant ISIS operative, and it is now facing a big dilemma
Ahmed Saad/Reuters
An American Special Ops unit recently captured a significant ISIS fighter in Iraq, but its plans for the operative after his imminent interrogation don't appear very solid.
The militant — the first captured by the the Army's elite Delta Force since its deployment in December — is being interrogated by the US at a temporary detention center near Erbil in northern Iraq, The New York Times reported.
But US officials didn't seem clear about what they planned to do with the detainee — and the presumed wave of detainees to come, if all goes to plan — after his interrogation, which could take weeks or months.
The Defense Department said there were no plans to hold any detainees for an indefinite amount of time — there is little appetite among administration officials for a new American facility to hold Islamic State detainees, à la the disgraced Abu Ghraib prison that held suspected members of Al Qaeda in Iraq from 2004 to 2006.
No ISIS operatives will be sent to Guantanamo Bay, either, in light of Obama's recent proposal to Congress that the controversial military prison be closed for good.
The US might do what it did with Umm Sayyaf, the wife of ISIS' "oil emir" Abu Sayyaf. Umm Sayyaf was detained for three months by US officials after American commandos killed her husband in a May raid. She was then transferred to Iraqi Kurds in August.
Ahmed Saad/ReutersThe Kurds, however, haven't filed any charges against Umm Sayyaf for her alleged role in the death of American aid worker Kayla Muller, or for the abuse of Yazidi women by her husband she reportedly helped facilitate. The worry among administration officials now, The Daily Beast reported, is that if they hand over the newest ISIS detainee to the Kurds, they won't bring him to justice.
"We discussed the idea of [Sayyaf's] surrender and extradition to the US with senior-level [Iraqi] officials, but ultimately that option was not available as Iraq has a constitutional prohibition on surrendering Iraqi citizens to foreign authorities," the official said.
It's not clear whether the ISIS fighter captured earlier this week is an Iraqi citizen. But if US officials remain steadfast in transferring him over to the Iraqis, as they did with Sayyaf, it's uncertain what will happen to him in their custody.
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