DERIK, Syria — In a dimly lit room the men sit on rows of bunk beds, their legs crossed or extended. Some smoke or read. Others rock rhythmically to and fro, mumbling prayers under their breath. Bright pink blankets stand in stark contrast with the grim atmosphere. A pale, thin man with wire-rimmed spectacles and a wispy beard stares daggers at a reporter who is allowed to peer briefly through a grilled window built into the cell’s iron door. He’s from Dagestan and, like the rest of his fellow prisoners at the Derik Central Prison for Terrorists in northeastern Syria, he was a fighter for the Islamic State.

Al-Monitor is the first Western media outlet to have been granted access to the maximum security detention center. It is run by the Syrian Kurdish administration, which controls a swath of northeastern Syrian territory the size of England that is protected by the US-led coalition battling IS together with the Kurds.

“This is the main detention center for captive fighters. The most dangerous terrorists are here,” Murad Ser, who has run the facility since 2014, told Al-Monitor on a recent afternoon. The converted warehouse currently houses around 400 IS combatants. “There are Canadians, Europeans, Chinese, Saudi Arabians, Tunisians, Libyans, Russians, Turks, Moroccans and many other nationalities,” Ser said, drawing an imaginary globe. Four hundred security guards watch over them. 

The issue of what to do with captured foreign fighters is an increasingly pressing one as Western governments refuse to take their nationals back. The Syrian Kurdish administration says it cannot cope on its own and is demanding that they be either repatriated to be prosecuted in their home countries or tried by an international tribunal in a northeastern Syrian court.