The Al-Hawl refugee camp is a refugee camp on the southern outskirts of the town of al-Hawl in northern Syria, close to the Syria-Iraq border. The camp is considered one of the most complicated and challenging places in the region, where thousands of women and children affiliated with ISIL live, and its unstable and abandoned atmosphere has provided conditions for the reproduction of radical ideas and the formation of a new generation of the terror group.
Initially only a temporary shelter for war refugees, Al-Hawl has practically become a “mini-caliphate” due to the developments of recent years; where ISIL ideology is constantly reproduced and children that do not go to school, and do not have IDs and with no future are easily attracted to it.
This camp, which now houses more than 50,000 people, is not only a humanitarian and moral challenge, but also a strategic threat to the security of Syria, Iraq and even Europe. Many security analysts believe that if ISIL regains power, the starting point of this comeback will not be the Syrian deserts, but this besieged camp; Where extremist ideology continues to thrive there amid global indifference.
Internal violence, Organized breakouts, and ISIL sleeper cells
Over the past year, a myriad of incidents have shown that the camp’s security structure, which is controlled by SDF has become more and fragile. An operation to free dozens of ISIL-affiliated women was thwarted; attacks were carried out on staff of international organizations; some makeshift schools were set on fire, and there were reports of explosives and knives being brought in. These incidents signal the crisis that is taking place deep inside the camp. ISIL-affiliated women:
--holding compulsory religious classes for children.
---have established networks to raise money from outside Syria.
---have created a quasi-state structure.
--- are training children to become the second generation of ISIL fighters.
The children growing up in al-Hawl today receive almost no contribution from the outside world; they have no formal education system, no psychological counseling, no possibility of leaving, and not even a legal ID that could guarantee them a future. This widespread deprivation has turned them into human beigs prone to be embracing extremism.
ISIL’s revival amid lack of security and control in Iraq and Syria
Although ISIL has suffered setbacks since 2019, signs of its slow return are clearly visible in both Syria and Iraq. Over the past year:
ISIL attacks in various parts of Iraq have tripled.
ISIL sleeper cells in Syria have been reactivated.
Some of the group’s senior commanders have managed to form small but active networks.
The killing of commanders such as Zia Zoba al-Hardani has only dealt a temporary blow to ISIL and has not prevented the reconstruction of its structures.
In the meantime, al-Hawl plays the role of a human and ideological base for ISIL; a point from which the hard core of the group receives intellectual and human nourishment.
Diplomatic turnaround: from isolation of damascus to the necessity of security cooperation
The developments related to Al-Hawl have led some countries that had severed their political relations with Damascus for years to now acknowledge the necessity of cooperating with the new Syrian regime in managing the ISIL threat. A clear sign of this change was the recent visit of the British Foreign Secretary to Damascus after many years and raising the issue of the “Al-Hawl threat” in official talks.
This political turn undoubtedly shows that the threat posed by tens of thousands of radical women and children in Al-Hawl has now reached a level that cannot be ignored through old policies. The West has also gradually come to the conclusion that resolving the Al-Hawl crisis is almost impossible without the active participation of Damascus or at least security coordination with it.
International Summit on Al-Hawl; Political consensus without implementation
At a recent UN summit, dozens of countries expressed concern about the humanitarian and security situation in Al-Hawl. However, political consensus does not mean a practical solution was reached. Western countries are still unwilling to accept their ISIL-affiliated citizens; Asian countries have postponed the issue for an unknown future; and the only country with a systematic plan to repatriate its citizens is Iraq. This international indecision is effectively putting hundreds of children and adolescents on a path that roughly coincides with their recruitment by the ISIL ideology.
Conclusion
Al-Hawl camp is not just a camp of crisis; it is a dangerous hotbed of ISIL reproduction. The world has not yet been able to come up with a practical solution to this challenge, while time is rapidly moving against the security of the region and the world. If the situation goes on like this, a new generation of ISIL may emerge from this camp, much more dangerous, more insane and better trained than the previous generation. The future of security in Syria, Iraq and even Europe depends on how quickly the international community decides to take responsibility for this crisis and find a way out of it.
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