Alleged US ISIS member deported between Turkish and Greek borders’

A US citizen suspected of being an Islamic State militant is stranded on the border between Greece and Turkey, after Turkey border officials expelled him.

The alleged militant was deported on Monday as Turkey launched a drive to repatriate captured jihadist fighters held in its prisons.  The Greek police said they refused him entry when he tried to cross the border near the Greek town of Kastanies.

The man is reported to have spent the night stuck between the two borders. According to a Turkish official, he explained that the man had refused to be returned to the US and instead asked to be sent to Greece.

On Tuesday he was still stuck on a strip of road between the two countries and witnesses said he had been trying to shout to reporters on the Turkish side. The fate of foreign IS fighters has been a key question since the defeat of the group in territory it controlled in Syria and Iraq.

Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan has indicated that 2,500 such militants are in prison in Turkey. Turkey’s interior ministry said it had also deported a Dane alleged to be an IS member on Monday. Danish authorities said their citizen had been arrested on arrival in Copenhagen.

Germany said one of its citizens had also been expelled. Turkey said more than 20 other European suspects, including 11 French citizens, two Irish nationals and several more Germans, are in the process of being repatriated to their countries of origin.

Turkey has long accused Western countries of refusing to take responsibility for citizens who joined Islamic State.  Germany, Denmark and the UK have repeatedly stripped people of citizenship for allegedly joining jihadist groups abroad, in a bid to block their return.

The UK is said to have withdrawn citizenship from more than 100 people – among them the IS recruit Shamima Begum, who left London as a teenager.