Germany to strip 'some' IS fighters of citizenship

More than 1,000 Germans have travelled to IS controlled territory since the militants established the so-called caliphate - a third of which have since returned to Germany.

While SDF forces enrage in a battle to retake the last IS territory, authorities in Europe, including Berlin, are debating how to handle the potential influx of returnees.

Under a new plan by Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives and their Social Democrat (SPD) coalition partners, three criteria must be met to allow the government to denaturalise Germans who take up arms for IS, according to unnamed sources reported in the Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper.

Among the rules stipulated, the individuals must be adults and must also hold a second citizenship.

The latest reports come just weeks after a high-profile case in the UK involving Shamima Begum, a 19-year old British-born Muslim who left her home country to join IS when she was just 15-years-old. 

Begum’s case has dominated the headlines in the UK press in the past weeks since she surfaced in the al-Hol refugee camp in northern Syria after running away from home in Bethnal Green, London, to join the Islamic State group in 2014.

Begum was stripped of her British citizenship in a decision by UK Home Secretary Sajid Javid that had ignited controversy on all sides of the debate. Her family have said they will legally challenge the decision.

Although her initial interviews with media outlets were unrepentant, Begum has since said she would like to return to the UK and become an "example of how someone can change". 

Birth-right citizenship

In the US, a judge is also considering the return of Hoda Muthana, a US-born woman who joined the Islamic State group in 2014.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo claimed that Muthana was not a US citizen and would not be allowed to return to the country, despite her having been born in New Jersey and raised in Alabama.

Ahmed Ali Muthana, the father of the 24-year-old who says she regrets joining the extremist group's so-called "caliphate", filed an emergency lawsuit against the Trump administration last week asking it to affirm his daughter was a US citizen.

"Upon her return to the United States, Mr. Muthana's daughter is prepared and willing to surrender to any charges the United States Justice Department finds appropriate and necessary," said the lawsuit filed with the US District Court in Washington.

A federal judge now says he will agree to consider the lawsuit and Muthana's return to the US with her 18-month-old son, AP reported.

She is currently living in the al-Hol refugee camp in northern Syria, alongside almost 50,000 other people, most of whom are women and children who recently fled from the last pocket of Islamic State territory in Baghouz, eastern Syria.

Conditions at the camp are rapidly deteriorating and supplies are becoming scarce as its population booms, humanitarian organisations have said.

It is extremely difficult for the United States to strip a person of citizenship, a step taken by Britain in the case of homegrown extremists such as Shamima Begum.

Trump's refusal to return Muthana to the US came even though he is pushing other Western countries to repatriate hundreds of suspected Islamic State members as the United States prepares to withdraw troops from Syria.

Follow us on Twitter: @The_NewArab