Umair
President Trump’s administration has temporarily exempted from its funding freeze a U.S. contractor supporting the police inside a Syrian desert camp that holds thousands of Islamic State members and their families, the camp’s director has said.
The reprieve underscored how securing the camp is seen as critical to helping prevent a resurgence of ISIS, a jihadist group, at a time when the ouster of Bashar al-Assad in Syria has thrown the country into flux and added to instability in the Middle East.
The contractor, Proximity International, was forced to halt operations after Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued a stop-work order last week for all foreign aid programs. Proximity International runs a program that trains and equips local security forces in northeastern Syria. The police it trains provide security inside Al Hol, a camp that houses some 39,000 ISIS members, their families and refugees.
The Trump administration has argued that the funding freeze, set to last 90 days, is needed to examine whether U.S. funds are being wasted. “Every dollar we spend, every program we fund and every policy we pursue must be justified with the answer to three simple questions,” Mr. Rubio said in a statement last month. “Does it make America safer? Does it make America stronger? Does it make America more prosperous?”
Proximity International had requested an exemption from the freeze, arguing that its work does make America safer, according to a person familiar with the program, who asked not to be identified because of the ongoing uncertainty around U.S. funding. Al Hol is seen as a key target for ISIS recruitment and operations, and maintaining security there is viewed as important to keeping the jihadist group at bay.
Late on Friday, just hours before the company’s contract for the security training program was due to expire, Proximity International was granted a one-month waiver to continue operating, according to an employee who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the situation, and to Jihan Hanan, the director of Al Hol and an official with the regional Kurdish authorities.
The temporary exemption for Proximity International followed a decision to grant a 15-day waiver for Blumont, a nonprofit that handles aid distribution and employs some security guards at Al Hol.
Ms. Hanan said she was relieved that the Trump administration appeared to understand the significance of Al Hol. But she warned that the short-term reprieves and chaos surrounding the status of other programs meant that long-term security concerns remained.
Much of the confusion stems from Mr. Rubio’s announcement that he was folding the United States Agency for International Development into the State Department. Elon Musk, who runs a task force in the Trump administration, said the aim was to shut down the U.S. aid agency, which also supports operations at Al Hol.
American connections to the camp, and in northeastern Syria, go back to the U.S.-led coalition that fought to eliminate ISIS. American troops maintain a presence in northeastern Syria, supporting a local ally, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, to guard against an ISIS comeback. The Kurdish-led group controls not only most of northeastern Syria but also a constellation of prisons and refugee camps in the territory holding ISIS fighters and their families.
About 22,000 of Al Hol’s residents are under 18, Ms. Hanan said, and have grown up in families once, and possibly still, loyal to ISIS. The humanitarian support now under threat is critical to ensuring they do not embrace extremism, she added.
Aid workers and researchers have long raised alarm over the miserable conditions at Al Hol. Inhabitants live in tents and are not allowed to leave the walled camp, making them completely dependent on aid distributions for bread, fuel and water.
Ms. Hanan said that the humanitarian concerns alone “should be enough” to maintain funding.
“Stopping aid is going to impact children whose background makes them a threat to the world, their communities and their own families,” she said in an interview. “We want to rehabilitate these children by improving their living conditions and instead, we were shocked to find out that it’s going in the opposite direction.”
Schools are already shut down in the camp, she said, and some services for women there also appear to be at risk. “A lot of organizations are telling us: At any moment, we may get an order to stop,” she said.
It is unclear what will happen when the waivers for Proximity International and Blumont expire. Employees of both organizations have said that they are scrambling to clarify with U.S. officials about what comes next.
