In a rare bit of good news from northern Syria, the United States has extricated two high-level ISIS prisoners from a Kurdish prison. The two men, Alexanda Kotey and El Shafee Elsheikh, should now face an unlawful combatant trial at Guantanamo Bay.
But we should first breathe a sigh of relief that the men are now secured. The chaos of Turkey’s incursion into northern Syria won’t lead to the escape of two of ISIS’s worst.
Because there’s no question that these are two of the worst, having served as part of “Jihadi John’s” British cell of senior ISIS fighters. Nicknamed “the Beatles,” Mohammed Emwazi’s group was responsible for torturing, interrogating, and executing innocent Westerners they had captured. Their victims include people such as the great American James Foley. ‘The Beatles’ also acted as network facilitators to allow ISIS engagement with other European jihadists in Syria. The U.S. and Britain have collected a significant mass of evidence indicating the two men’s involvement in the worst of ISIS brutality against civilians under its control.
Again, however, the importance of their now being in U.S. custody should not be discounted.
For one, the British government had shown interest in removing the two men to face trial either in the United Kingdom or at the international criminal tribunal at the Hague. Either possibility would have denied Kotey’s and Elsheik’s victims the appropriate measure of justice they deserve.
Still, we’re not entirely out of the woods just yet. President Trump may still decide to transfer the men to the British or to the Iraqi government, which has made a great effort to detain and prosecute as many captured ISIS fighters as it can.
He should reject both alternatives. These men must be sent to trial at Guantanamo to be treated fairly on the right terms: as enemies of humanity. If convicted, they can then experience a slower version of Jihadi John’s fate: turning into dust.
