IS-linked French citizens and their families expelled from Turkey to France

Three French citizens linked to the Islamic State group and their nine children returned home on Tuesday, after being expelled by Turkey.

It comes a day after France took back 12 orphaned children of French IS militants from camps in northern Syria.

The three adults - a 35-year-old man and two women, one aged-36 - were taken into custody by the French authorities and the children were placed under the protection of the state.

France has one of the largest contingents of suspected jihadi-linked militants who were captured or turned themselves in, together with their families, in the final stages of the US-backed Kurdish assault on the last fragment of IS' "caliphate".

The jihadi proto-state eventually died in the village of Baghouz, on the banks of the Euphrates, in March this year, after a months-long US-backed Kurdish assault.

Larger than expected numbers of families emerged from the ruins of the last IS enclave and the fate of tens of thousands of them remains unclear.