BAGHDAD (Dispatches) — Iraq has rejected a Syrian request to repatriate approximately 4,000 Daesh terrorists transferred from Syrian detention centers into Iraqi custody earlier this year, insisting that anyone who committed crimes on Iraqi soil must face trial under Iraqi law.
Iraqi National Security Adviser Qasim al-Aboudi said a recent trilateral meeting between Syria, Iraq, and the United States was held to discuss the detainees’ fate. 
Al-Aboudi told the Associated Press that Damascus asked Baghdad to hand over the roughly 4,000 Syrian prisoners for trial in Syria, but Iraq declined. 
“Iraq is conducting investigations, and anyone proved to have committed crimes in Iraq will be tried under Iraqi law,” he said, noting some detainees could later be transferred home to complete their sentences.
Iraqi authorities have determined that about 400 Syrian prisoners were not members of Daesh and can be released, while roughly 50 others have already been handed to Syria. Hundreds of the Syrians still held in Iraqi jails are believed to be high-ranking Daesh members.
More than 5,700 prisoners with Daesh links, including some 4,000 Syrians, were transferred from northeast Syria to Iraq after clashes erupted in January between Syria’s Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS)-led regime forces and the U.S.-sponsored, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which had long controlled the detention centers. 
Large numbers of Daesh detainees escaped during the fighting; the SDF said it lost control of a prison following HTS attacks.
Analysts and regional sources have pointed to possible coordination — or at least parallel actions — involving U.S. forces, Kurdish authorities, and Syrian factions.
The dispute comes as the U.S. military has completed its withdrawal from Iraq, ending more than two decades of U.S.-led occupation. 
Jomaa al-Atwani, head of Iraq’s “Ufuq” research center, described Daesh as “an international conspiracy aimed at paving the way for the U.S. return to the region.”
Many Western countries remain unwilling to repatriate their citizens accused of Daesh ties, along with women and children believed to be militants’ family members.
The prisoner dispute unfolds amid reports that Saudi Arabia has asked Syria’s de facto leader, Abu Muhammad al-Jolani to send extremist fighters from the Syrian army to Yemen. 
Citing three U.S. officials, Axios reported Thursday that Riyadh and Damascus have discussed deploying up to 20,000 militants to Yemen to support the Saudi-backed offensive against Yemeni armed forces.