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In the largest IDP camp, called al-Hol, ISIL now exerts more influence and control than the few dozen SDF guards stationed there, according to U.S. officials, lawmakers and experts. ISIL women have created a morality police corps inside the camp, enforcing sharia law and even conducting brutal executions, officials said. ISIL is recruiting from the camp, smuggling fighters in and out and using it to plan attacks in other parts of Syria, officials told me. If it’s not already effectively Caliphate 2.0, it soon will be.

“The IDP camp al-Hol is quickly becoming a mini-caliphate and a fertile recruiting ground for ISIS,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., told me. “The security footprint around the camp is incredibly weak, and the camp is being run by ISIS types under our very nose.”

About 11,000 of the 70,000 mostly women and children in al-Hol come from countries outside of Iraq or Syria. Most of those countries have refused to take back their citizens, leaving them in squalid conditions that make ISIL recruiting easier. The United States has taken back 21 ISIL IDPs and is prosecuting all those who traveled to Syria as adults. But most European countries have refused; some have even stripped ISIL members of their citizenship.

Photo by DELIL SOULEIMAN/AFP/Getty Images

“The European response when it comes to ISIS fighters has been pathetic and dangerous,” said Graham. “When it comes to al-Hol, the red lights are blinking. We ignore it at our own peril.”

Trump, frustrated with Europe’s stance, actually threatened to “release” thousands of ISIL fighters to Europe, which was likely a joke. But absent some action, they could get there anyway. Officials told me that al-Hol residents affiliated with ISIL have already shown up in different parts of Syria and Turkey.