President Trump needs to put in a call to his defense secretary, Jim Mattis, and get the Islamic State’s “Beatles” out of Syria. That’s because two of the four British nationals who joined ISIS and were given that name (the other two are dead) were able to give a rather pleasant interview with the Associated Press on Friday, despite being in detention.
In that interview, El Shafee Elsheikh and Alexanda Kotey denied their involvement with an ISIS detention, interrogation, and execution cell and stated that they won’t be given a fair trial if they were ever apprehended by U.S. authorities.
Trump should be embarrassed. As I noted after the two terrorists were captured in February, the most immediate objective for Trump should have been to ensure they were quickly handed over to U.S. authorities and then taken to Guantanamo Bay. There, shackled under the U.S. flag, they could have been lawfully interrogated and eventually put up for military trial.
But considering ISIS is now reconstituting in eastern Syria and that Elsheikh and Kotey were senior operations officers in the group, playing a role in external operations plotting, it makes absolutely no sense that they have not been transferred out of Kurdish custody.
After all, their previous positions in ISIS mean they possess crucial intelligence on senior leadership figures, operations, and strategy. That information is best extracted on U.S. territory or a U.S. military base where the U.S. alone controls the conditions of detention.
I can think of only two reasons why the transfer has not yet occurred. First, that the Trump administration is discussing with Britain whether the U.K. or the U.S. should try the two men. If so, Trump should politely inform British Prime Minister Theresa May that he has decided to try the terrorists under U.S. military law. If the British government complains, Trump should reemphasize his recent support for U.S. diplomatic expulsions of Russian diplomats in relation to Putin’s attack on Sergei Skripal, and his commitment to a near-term free trade deal with Britain.
Still, it’s also important that the “Beatles” don’t get a British trial for another reason.
Namely, because if they do, they will not face the death penalty, nor even life without parole, in all likelihood. The conditions in British prison will also be inhumane to the terrorists’ victims, in that the two men will be treated to relative luxury, at least compared to U.S. supermax facilities or Guantanamo.
The second possible reason why the transfer has not taken place is that Kurdish commanders are playing hardball with the U.S. over the terms of their transfer. If so, the U.S. should offer the carrot of monetary support and the stick of U.S. pressure to persuade Kurdish officers that the terrorists belong in U.S. hands. The nature of Kurdish militia politics is such that this carrot-stick approach should work.
Either way, Trump must act now.
