The transfer of thousands of fighters from the so-called Islamic State (ISIS) to the Iraqi central government is far more than an administrative or security measure. It is a historic test. With this transfer, a years long provisional arrangement in Kurdish controlled areas of northern Syria comes to an end. At the same time, a new phase begins, one that will determine how Iraq and the international community legally and morally classify the darkest chapter of the region’s recent history.
The central question is clear. Will the crimes committed between 2014 and 2019 in Iraq and Syria be treated for what they truly were, systematic genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and organized dehumanization, or will they be reduced to the legal shortcut of membership in a terrorist organization?
Eleven years after August 3, 2014, the wound of the genocide against the Yazidis has not healed. On that day, the systematic destruction of a religious minority began. The Yazidis, whose history has long been marked by persecution and forced conversion, were targeted with the intent to eliminate them as a community. Thousands of men were murdered. Women and girls were enslaved and raped. Children were abducted, indoctrinated, and stripped of their identity. The United Nations, many national parliaments, and in 2023 the German Bundestag officially recognized these crimes as genocide. Yet political recognition is not the same as legal justice, and it is certainly not the same as social healing.
When we speak today with survivors, we do not encounter a closed chapter of history. We encounter a present that is still shaped by what happened. Trauma is not an event that disappears into archives. It is an experience that disrupts a person’s basic trust in the world and continues to affect identity, emotions, and social relationships. Psychologically, trauma represents an attack on the expectation of safety, stability, and meaning. Many survivors still live in a state of constant alertness, between dissociation and depression, between guilt and anger. Children who spent years in captivity often show aggressive behavior or emotional emptiness. Some continued to sing the hymns of their captors long after their liberation, because those songs had become the background sound of their childhood. This is not ideological loyalty. It is the result of forced socialization under extreme violence.
In this psychological reality, the question of legal accountability is not an abstract debate about legal categories. It touches the foundation of individual and collective healing. Legal language shapes memory. If a perpetrator is convicted only as a member of a terrorist organization, the specific crime disappears behind the label. The rape of a woman, the murder of a child, the systematic destruction of religious identity, these acts are absorbed into a general category that does not fully reflect their intention and scale. For survivors, this creates a second form of devaluation. Their suffering appears as a side effect of terrorism, not as a deliberate attempt to destroy them as a group.
The 2021 judgment of the Higher Regional Court in Frankfurt, Germany, which convicted an ISIS member for genocide against a Yazidi mother and her five year old daughter, demonstrated the importance of precise legal language. This judgment was not only a criminal conviction. It was a normative statement. It made clear that the crimes were not anonymous acts of violence but targeted crimes against a specific group. From a psychological perspective, this distinction is essential. Healing begins with naming. What is not named remains vague, continues to operate beneath the surface, and can later be manipulated for political purposes.
Iraq at a legal crossroads
Iraq now faces a decisive choice. In the past, many ISIS members were tried under anti-terrorism laws, often in short proceedings and frequently with death sentences. From the perspective of a state struggling for stability, this approach may appear understandable. However, it is legally and socially insufficient. ISIS crimes were structured, ideologically justified, and systematically organized. The United Nations investigative team UNITAD collected hundreds of thousands of pieces of evidence, documented witness testimonies, and exhumed mass graves. The factual basis for charges of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes clearly exists. The crucial question is whether there is the political will to use this evidence within a robust and transparent legal framework.
The political importance of these trials cannot be overstated. Iraq is a fragile state shaped by dictatorship, wars, sanctions, and deep social divisions. The Anfal campaign and the chemical attack on Halabja, in which hundreds of thousands of Kurds were killed under Saddam Hussein, remain only partially addressed in terms of justice and collective reconciliation. Iraq’s history shows how incomplete legal accountability can deepen collective trauma. A state that reduces the gravest crimes of its recent past to narrow legal formulas signals that structural violence may be militarily defeated but not morally delegitimized. A state that clearly names and prosecutes these crimes strengthens its own legitimacy and sends a powerful message to minorities that their existence matters and their dignity is not negotiable.
For the Yazidis, this issue is existential. Hundreds of thousands still live in camps. Their home region of Sinjar remains politically contested, economically devastated, and insecure. Many hesitate to return because they do not trust that history will not repeat itself. This mistrust is rooted not only in the violence of ISIS but also in the feeling of political neglect. If the trials now minimize the nature of the crimes, this fragile trust will erode further.
The Kurdish perspective is also complex. Kurdish forces played a central role in the military defeat of ISIS and paid a high price. At the same time, the events of August 2014 remain overshadowed by accusations that the Yazidis were not adequately protected. A coordinated legal strategy between Baghdad and Erbil would therefore be more than a technical decision. It would be a symbolic act. It would show that political rivalries can give way to a shared commitment to justice and minority protection.
The impact of these trials extends beyond Iraq
The impact of these trials extends beyond Iraq. In Syria, the group Hayat Tahrir al Sham, with its jihadist past and authoritarian tendencies, holds significant power. Its treatment of minorities and political opponents is closely watched by the international community. A consistent and legally sound prosecution of ISIS crimes in Iraq would send a clear signal to actors such as Hayat Tahrir al Sham and its leader Ahmad al Shar. Systematic violence against minorities does not go unpunished. International justice is not selective. Non state and de facto state actors can and should be held accountable for crimes against humanity. Legal accountability in Iraq would therefore also serve as a preventive message to other centers of power in the region. If genocide and crimes against humanity are relativized today, gray zones for future perpetrators will emerge tomorrow.
From a Western perspective, these trials are also of direct relevance. Thousands of foreign fighters remain in detention, while many of their countries of origin hesitate to repatriate them. This reluctance may be politically convenient domestically, but it carries long term security risks. Radicalization is not an isolated phenomenon. It feeds on collective narratives of humiliation and on feelings of insignificance. ISIS was highly effective in transforming trauma into ideology and offering violence as a source of meaning. If legal accountability is superficial, the ideological core remains untouched.
As a court expert in several ISIS related trials in Europe, I have witnessed how decisive legal classification can be. These trials are not only about individual guilt. They are about how society interprets what happened. When courts clearly identify ideological motives, systematic planning, and genocidal intent, they establish that these individuals were not simply extremists but perpetrators of crimes against humanity. Such clarity protects the dignity of victims and sets standards for future generations.
With the transfer of ISIS fighters, Iraq has received a second chance. The first was in 2014, when it failed to protect its minorities. The second chance lies now in demonstrating the strength of the rule of law. The international community should support this process in a cooperative manner. Countries with experience in universal jurisdiction can provide expertise and institutional support.
Ultimately, this is about more than prison sentences. It is about whether a society that has endured extreme violence has the courage to confront that violence in its full depth. Justice is not an instrument of revenge. It is an instrument of peace. It prevents trauma from becoming a political resource. It prevents victims from remaining permanently marginalized. And it prevents perpetrators from disappearing into zones of moral ambiguity.
Reducing these trials to minimal legal categories risks a profound moral crisis. Choosing comprehensive, transparent, and internationally grounded accountability sends a message beyond Iraq that even after extreme barbarism, law is possible, that normative order can be defended even in fragile states, and that justice is not a symbolic word but a concrete act that restores dignity.
For survivors of genocide, dignity is not an abstract concept. It is the condition for living in the present again. Without justice, trauma remains political, an open space for resentment and renewed radicalization. With justice, trauma can slowly, painfully, and imperfectly become history. This is what is truly at stake in the upcoming trials, not only guilt and punishment, but the future of Iraq and the moral foundation of an entire region.
Dr. Jan Ilhan Kizilhan is a psychologist, author and publisher, an expert in psychotraumatology, trauma, terror and war, transcultural psychiatry, psychotherapy and migration.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rudaw.