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A halt in foreign aid may undermine American organizations’ support for forces that guard the two largest camps holding Islamic State members and their families.
Jan. 30, 2025, 11:09 a.m. ET
President Trump’s sweeping executive order to halt foreign aid threatens to freeze a U.S. program supporting security forces inside a notorious camp in the Syrian desert that holds tens of thousands of Islamic State members and their families, Syrian and U.S. officials said.
The order has also wreaked havoc on another U.S. organization in Syria that was forced to briefly stop operations inside the camp, known as Al Hol, where the large concentration of ISIS members is seen as a security threat.
Concerns over an ISIS comeback have been rising, with Syria in a state of flux as its new leaders try to solidify control over a nation still fragmented after rebels ousted its authoritarian leader, Bashar al-Assad.
The Trump administration has argued that the funding freeze, set to last for 90 days, was needed to ensure U.S. funds were not being wasted. But its impact highlights the risk posed to operations seen as critical to preventing a resurgence of ISIS, a jihadist group that once controlled vast swaths of Syria and Iraq and launched deadly attacks in Europe and the United States before it was decimated by an American-led international coalition.
American troops still maintain a presence in northeastern Syria, supporting a local U.S. ally, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, in the coalition’s fight against ISIS. The S.D.F. not only controls northeastern Syria, but also a constellation of prisons and refugee camps in the territory holding ISIS fighters and their families, who are mostly from Syria and Iraq but also dozens of other countries.
“The Al Hol camp is full of ISIS remnants,” Jihan Hanan, the camp director and an official in the regional government, said in an interview. “Our prisons are full of ISIS fighters. They pose a huge threat to the people of this region. We were the ones who fought on the front lines against ISIS. We were America’s partners. They should continue with us to the end — or at least until we can ensure peace and security for this region.”
