Just over 12 years ago, Kamaldin Teshebaev and his wife had a large family of three sons, three daughters-in-law, and 16 grandchildren. They lived a stable, working-class life in the small town of Kyzyl-Kiya in southwestern Kyrgyzstan.
But the traditional Kyrgyz family’s world came crashing down when one of his sons — a migrant worker in Russia left for Syria in 2014 along with his own family, to join Islamic State (IS) as the extremist group gained a foothold there. Soon, the other brothers followed suit.
Teshebaev, who is in his 70s, says his three sons and three of his grandchildren were killed in Syria.
After IS lost the territory it controlled in Iraq and Syria, tens of thousands of foreign fighters and their family members were detained or placed in camps. In Iraq, many foreign women who had traveled to live under IS, including wives of IS militants, were subsequently convicted under the country’s counterterrorism laws.
Teshebaev’s daughters-in-law also ended up in Iraqi prisons after the collapse of IS’s self-proclaimed caliphate. Teshebaev says his wife traveled to Syria to try to “bring them back,” but she ended up in an Iraqi prison too. Details of her case could not be independently verified, but her family says she is also being held on charges linked to terrorism.
“I am alone now, but I am grateful to our president and government that brought back my grandchildren,” Teshebaev said. “They are grown up now, two of them recently got married.”
His 13 surviving grandchildren were among 79 children of Kyrgyz IS fighters whom Bishkek repatriated from Iraq in a humanitarian operation in 2021.
Kyrgyzstan and other Central Asian states have organized similar missions, coordinating with local authorities and international organizations to repatriate some of their nationals, primarily women and children.
by RFE/RL – Kyrgyz Families Plead For Return Of Islamic State Fighters’ Wives, Relatives From Iraqi Prisons
