Latest in Umm Sayyaf
Yesterday, Eric Schmitt had a story in the New York Times providing a rare glimpse into the ongoing activities of the “Expeditionary Targeting Force” (“ETF”).
Last summer, U.S. forces conducted a raid in Syria that resulted in the capture of Umm Sayyaf, an ISIL member involved in the imprisonment and rape of women including American citizen Kayla Mueller. She was in U.S. military custody long enough to allow for interrogation both by the HIG and by a subsequent FBI clean team, but was not ultimately brought to the United States for trial. Instead, she was transferred to Kurdish authorities to face trial there.
Last week, Nathalie and I wrote about the international law questions U.S. executive officials were likely considering while contemplating the continued detention and ultimate fate of the sole known ISIS detainee, and surely must have contemplated in the lead-up to her capture. Now Shane Harris and Nancy Youssef have an article in the Daily Beast titled “U.S.
Critical attention to the Obama Administration’s handling of the ongoing conflict with al Qaeda and associated forces tends to center on debates over drones and targeted killing, not captures. This may be due at least in part to the fact that, over the course of President Obama’s entire tenure in office, the United States has conducted almost no law-of-war capture and detention operations outside of the Afghan theater.
In a special operations raid last month targeting a key ISIL figure in Syria, U.S. forces came away with that rarest of things: a prisoner. Abu Sayyaf's wife, Umm Sayyaf, was taken into custody during the raid, and brought to Iraq for questioning--in U.S.