BAGHDAD, Feb. 22 (Xinhua) -- The Iraqi authorities said that more than 1,500 women and children from families of Islamic State (IS) militants are held by the Iraqi authorities, and the Iraqi government is coordinating with their countries to decide their fate, an Iraqi newspaper reported on Thursday.
"We are holding 500 wives of IS warriors, all are foreigners, in addition to their children, bringing their number to more than 1,500," the al-Mashriq newspaper quoted Mohammed al-Sudani, the Minister of Labor and Social Affairs, as saying.
Sudani said that his ministry made many contacts with the countries to which those detainees belong to decide how to deal with the children, according to the newspaper.
For his part, Saad al-Hadithi, the spokesman of Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi's media office, confirmed that all "foreign nationals who committed crimes and violations against the people of Iraq, whether directly or by supporting the terrorist IS militants, will be subject to the Iraqi law," the newspaper quoted Hadithi as saying.
"This also applies to foreign women (of IS families) who committed such actions inside the Iraqi territories," Hadithi said.
"The government will coordinate with the countries to which the detainees belong. If they are not proven to have committed crimes or killings and bombings in Iraq, they will be handed over to their countries," Hadithi added.
Thousands of foreign fighters from different countries had joined IS group which established the self-proclaimed Islamic State in parts of Iraq and Syria in 2014. Hundreds of them have been killed, captured or run away after the Iraqi forces liberated all of the urban areas under their control, including their major stronghold in the city of Mosul, in late last year.
