By: ِYassmine ElSayed
CAIRO, Feb. 17 (SEE) - US President Donald Trump urged European countries to take back and put on trial hundreds of ISIS fighters who have been captured in Syria.
In a series of tweets, he said: "Time for others to step up and do the job that they are so capable of doing", warning that as ISIS is "ready to fall," and more than 800 prisoners could make their way to Europe.
He added: "The alternative is not a good one in that we will be forced to release them. The US does not want to watch as these ISIS fighters permeate Europe, which is where they are expected to go."
Trump's comments come as the area that ISIS now controls has shrunk to just 700 square meters, a commander with the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) said on Saturday.
The SDF has launched an offensive to oust ISIS from its last enclave in Syria, in the small town of Baghouz Al-Fawqani in the country's east. At its height, the group controlled an area the size of Great Britain and ruled over 10 million people.
On Friday, UK Home Secretary Sajid Javid said Britain will "not hesitate" to prevent the return of ISIS fighters to the UK, but those who make it back will be investigated and potentially prosecuted.
"We have a range of tough measures to stop people who pose a serious threat from returning to the UK, including depriving them of their British citizenship or excluding them from the UK," Javid said.
Trump's tweets come days after a British teenager, who joined ISIS in 2015, said she wants to return home after falling pregnant.
Shamima Begum traveled from London to Syria with two of her classmates when she was 15 to join the caliphate. Now 19, she told The Times that she had no regrets about going to Syria but that she wanted to come home "to have my child." On Saturday, her family's lawyer announced Begum had given birth to her third child.
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