ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Iraq said on Thursday that it had repatriated approximately 2,000 Syrian soldiers, who had sought refuge in the country a day before the collapse of Bashar al-Assad's regime, to Syrian authorities.
"In coordination with some parties on the Syrian side, 1,905 Syrian officers and members were returned and handed over in a legal manner to a protection force on the Syrian side at the Qaim border crossing," the Security Media Cell said in a statement.
The cell explained that when the soldiers fled to Iraq, all their belongings, including weapons, were kept in the Iraqi defense ministry's depots.
It added that the previous day the Iraqi authorities also returned 36 employees of Syria's al-Bukamal border crossing with Iraq who had also fled war.
Sa’d Mohammadi, head of the security committee of the Anbar provincial council, told Rudaw on Wednesday that they had begun measures to repatriate 2,490 Syrian soldiers who had fled war, adding that the return would be "voluntary."
The soldiers started fleeing to Iraq through the al-Qaim border crossing on December 7, a day before Assad’s regime collapsed. Iraqi officials said at the time that they had entered the country with Baghdad’s permission.
The incumbent administration, led by the Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), has issued an amnesty to the former regime’s soldiers, designating places for them to hand over their weapons.
During the escalation of the conflict between the HTS and the Syrian regime, thousands of soldiers from the Iraqi armed forces, including the Iranian-backed Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), along with border police, were deployed along the Iraqi-Syrian border in Anbar province. Iraq feared that the developments in the neighboring country could negatively affect its security.
The Shiite-led Iraqi government was among the top allies of Assad, but Baghdad was quick to announce that it did not want to be embroiled in the conflict.
