Write a short, clear, factual news headline based on this article:
Three Frenchmen held in Iraq, forced to work for the Islamic State group as children, are seeking repatriation on the grounds they were victims of war, their lawyers said Friday.
International humanitarian law prohibits the recruitment and use of children in hostilities.
The men – taken to Syria by their jihadist parents aged 11 or 12 then made to take part in propaganda videos, fight or join IS group police – have filed legal documents in France claiming they were the victim of a war crime over their recruitment, a source with knowledge of the case told AFP.
The three detainees are part of 5,700 suspected IS group “fighters” of 61 nationalities transferred from Syria to neighbouring Iraq earlier this year.
But according to their lawyers arguing for their repatriation, the French judicial system should instead be considering them as “war victims”.
“No child chooses to be enlisted, and France is displaying the worst kind of indignity in this matter, while also violating the conventions to which it is a signatory,” attorneys Marie Dose and Matthieu Bagard said in a joint statement.
“Instead of treating them as the victims they are, France refused to repatriate them from Syria and made possible their transfer to a squalid Iraqi prison where they are subjected to inhuman and degrading treatment,” they added.
Hundreds of French men and women joined the ranks of the IS group after the jihadist group seized large swathes of Syria and neighbouring Iraq in 2014, implementing their brutal interpretation of Islamic law in a so-called “caliphate”.
Backed by US-led forces, Iraq proclaimed the defeat of IS group in the country in 2017.
Kurdish-led Syrian fighters ultimately beat back the group in Syria two years later, detaining thousands of alleged IS group fighters as well as their family members.
Syrian Kurdish authorities have long urged the international community to repatriate their nationals, but Western nations have been very reluctant and only brought some home on a case-by-case basis.
The United States transferred “5,700 adult male ISIS fighters” to Iraqi custody in February after Syrian troops drove Kurdish forces from swathes of northern Syria, sparking questions over the fate of the IS group prisoners.
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Article:
Three Frenchmen held in Iraq, forced to work for the Islamic State group as children, are seeking repatriation on the grounds they were victims of war, their lawyers said Friday.
International humanitarian law prohibits the recruitment and use of children in hostilities.
The men – taken to Syria by their jihadist parents aged 11 or 12 then made to take part in propaganda videos, fight or join IS group police – have filed legal documents in France claiming they were the victim of a war crime over their recruitment, a source with knowledge of the case told AFP.
The three detainees are part of 5,700 suspected IS group “fighters” of 61 nationalities transferred from Syria to neighbouring Iraq earlier this year.
But according to their lawyers arguing for their repatriation, the French judicial system should instead be considering them as “war victims”.
“No child chooses to be enlisted, and France is displaying the worst kind of indignity in this matter, while also violating the conventions to which it is a signatory,” attorneys Marie Dose and Matthieu Bagard said in a joint statement.
“Instead of treating them as the victims they are, France refused to repatriate them from Syria and made possible their transfer to a squalid Iraqi prison where they are subjected to inhuman and degrading treatment,” they added.
Hundreds of French men and women joined the ranks of the IS group after the jihadist group seized large swathes of Syria and neighbouring Iraq in 2014, implementing their brutal interpretation of Islamic law in a so-called “caliphate”.
Backed by US-led forces, Iraq proclaimed the defeat of IS group in the country in 2017.
Kurdish-led Syrian fighters ultimately beat back the group in Syria two years later, detaining thousands of alleged IS group fighters as well as their family members.
Syrian Kurdish authorities have long urged the international community to repatriate their nationals, but Western nations have been very reluctant and only brought some home on a case-by-case basis.
The United States transferred “5,700 adult male ISIS fighters” to Iraqi custody in February after Syrian troops drove Kurdish forces from swathes of northern Syria, sparking questions over the fate of the IS group prisoners.
More than 5,000 council places in England are being contested on 7 May, along with several mayoralties, and elections for the Scottish and Welsh parliaments, in a significant test for all the major parties.
Councils began publishing lists of confirmed candidates on Friday, after the closure of nominations at 4pm on Thursday. Reform say they are standing candidates in just over 95% of seats, around as many as Labour. Nigel Farage, Reform UK’s leader, has said the party’s vetting procedures have been beefed up.
One of its candidates for Bolton council is Derek Bullock, a former Conservative who was suspended by the party over allegations he posted a racist comment about people of Pakistani heritage on Facebook. Bullock said screenshots showing the comment were faked.
Bullock was a Tory candidate for the council in 2023 when images emerged of a post sent at the time of the 2017 Manchester Arena terrorist attack in which he allegedly used a racial slur to call for people of Pakistani heritage to be shot.
The Conservatives disowned his candidacy, and Bullock won as an independent. Earlier, in 2020, Bullock had faced internal disciplinary action by the Conservatives after allegedly posting an anti-Islam article on Facebook .
A Reform spokesperson said: “Mr Bullock has always strongly maintained that this image is fake and has reported this resurfaced material to the police. Mr Bullock is a valued member of his community and is currently a trustee of the Asian Elders’ Resource Centre in Bolton.”
Reform has separately said that among its candidates for Sunderland council is Glenda Hall, whose Facebook page includes posting a video setting out Covid conspiracy theories, and appearing to recommend a blog post describing Afghan men as “sexual predators”.
Nigel Farage launches local election campaign slogan in Westminster. Photograph: Matthew Chattle/Shutterstock
In 2020, Hall shared what she called an “interesting video” about whether Covid is the “hoax of the century” by a renowned conspiracy theorist called Vernon Coleman. He has described the pandemic as the “greatest fraud in human history”, calling it an exaggerated scare created by “the Rothschilds, the Rockefellers, the Bliderbergers and the Jesuits”.
Last year she recommended a Substack post about, as she called it, “secret immigration of Afghans into the UK”.
The post calls Afghan men “sexual predators”, arguing that stories about the murder of Afghan men by western troops might have been “wishful thinking motivated by revulsion at the sexual behaviour of Afghan men.”
She added: “Personally I hope they were true.”
Reform has been contacted for comment on Hall. A Labour party spokesperson called the comments “utterly deplorable”.
“Nigel Farage has repeatedly boasted about Reform’s vetting procedures,” the spokesperson said. “Yet again, his party is insulting voters by standing individuals who are completely unfit for public office. Farage needs to urgently condemn these vile remarks and sack them as Reform candidates.”
Reform are forecast to make significant gains across a number of councils, as well as in Scotland and Wales. While Labour and the Conservatives are expected to experience heavy losses, the Green party are hoping to win a number of seats amid a surge in polling under Zack Polanski, the party’s leader in England and Wales since September.
On Friday evening, the Greens said they had candidates standing in 89% of the English local council seats being contested, far higher than in any previous election. Their previous highest was 72%, set last year.
Earlier in the week, the Greens took a seat from Reform on Kent council, often described as Reform’s “flagship” administration, after a byelection prompted by the sitting Reform councillor being jailed for controlling or coercive behaviour towards his wife.
The Artemis II, and the four astronauts aboard the Orion space capsule, has splashed down into the Pacific Ocean off the coast of San Diego, Nasa has confirmed.
The spacecraft touched down at 5.07pm (1.07am BST) after a 10-day journey around the moon and back. The Orion spacecraft has traveled 694,481 miles (1,117,659km), Nasa said.
Commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, and mission specialist Christina Koch of Nasa, and the Canadian Space Agency’s Jeremy Hansen, have just become the first humans to travel to the moon, and return to Earth safely, since the crew of Apollo 17 in December 1970.
They join an exclusive club of just 24 other humans who have travelled to the moon and returned safely to Earth.
As the Orion capsule descended below 17,000 miles from the planet’s surface, Wiseman gave a description of the Earth as it came into view. “There’s a great blue hue to it. It’s beautiful,” he said.
The Artemis II Orion capsule splashes down in the Pacific Ocean, on Friday, 10 April 2026. Photograph: AP
After landing in the Pacific Ocean, a recovery crew from the USS John P Murtha stands ready to retrieve the Artemis crew, using boats that will pull up to an inflatable “porch” attached to Orion’s hatch. Crew members will be transferred to the navy ship by helicopter.
Nasa has proven it can once again send humans safely to and from cislunar space, the void between Earth and its nearest celestial body, and will build on the knowledge gained to further propel the Artemis program towards a scheduled crewed moon landing in 2028, 56 years after the last.
The rest of humanity, meanwhile, has received memories of a week and a half in which the world appeared to come together for a rare moment of unity to enjoy stunning video footage and high-resolution images of the lunar surface – and Earth from afar – as well as some profound and heartfelt words from usually unsentimental astronauts as they described what they were seeing.
“I just had an overwhelming sense of being moved by looking at the moon,” the Nasa astronaut Christina Koch said of her first impressions of Orion’s closest approach on Monday, 4,067 miles (6,545km) above the lunar surface.
“It lasted just a second or two and I actually couldn’t even make it happen again, but something just threw me in suddenly to the lunar landscape and it became real.
“The moon really is its own unique body in the universe. When we have that perspective and we compare it to our home of the Earth, it just reminds us how much we have in common. Everything we need, the Earth provides, and that, in and of itself, is somewhat of a miracle.”
The Artemis II crew capsule is shown at Nasa’s mission control center during a maneuver ahead of its re‑entry to Earth, following the Artemis II crew’s flyby of the Moon. Photograph: Nasa/Reuters
Koch became the only woman to have travelled to the moon and back during a mission of firsts. Jeremy Hansen of the Canadian Space Agency became the first non-American. Victor Glover, the Artemis II pilot, became the first person of color to do so.
Collectively, with the mission commander, Reid Wiseman, the four travelled farther from Earth than any human before them, reaching 252,756 miles, more than 4,000 beyond the previous record set by the Apollo 13 crew in April 1970.
It was not all plain sailing during their 695,000-mile voyage. Orion’s glitchy toilet in a capsule the size of a small camper van malfunctioned more than once, necessitating the temporary deployment of urine collection bags and inflight repairs from Koch in her alternative role of plumber.
There were moments of fun. The crew enjoyed an egg hunt of sorts on Easter Sunday, trying to find packets of dehydrated scrambled eggs hidden around the spacecraft. A plushie named Rise – the mission’s official mascot designed by eight-year-old California second-grader Lucas Ye, appeared regularly on camera during crew press conferences.
The Artemis II crew capsule after splashing down in the Pacific Ocean. Photograph: Nasa/Reuters
Probably the most emotional episode came on Monday, when the crew proposed dedicating a previously unnamed moon crater to Carroll Taylor Wiseman, wife of the Artemis II commander and mother of their daughters, Katey and Ellie, who died of cancer in 2020. Hansen struggled to get the words out, prompting tears and hugs among the four.
During the “business” side of the mission, the astronauts evaluated Orion’s life support systems, radiation detectors, next-generation spacesuits and tested other operations that will be crucial to future deep-space missions and Nasa’s longer-term plans for the Artemis program, including an ambitious $20bn moon base to be built within a decade.
The agency sees the first splashdown of a returning moon crew in more than five decades as an important next step. Although not as visually mesmerizing as the fiery 1 April launch from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center that sent Artemis II into the heavens, the landing still required a similar level of intricate planning, precision and execution.
Changes to the heat shield after anomalies arose on the uncrewed Artemis I mission of November 2022 gave Nasa confidence that Orion would withstand temperatures up to 5,000F (2,760C) at its 25,000mph re-entry to Earth’s atmosphere; and mission managers selected a steeper, direct path of re-entry to reduce heat stress.
A succession of deployments of Orion’s 11 parachutes at various altitudes was designed to slow the spacecraft to 325mph, then 130mph, before the three main chutes, their canopies stretching a combined 80 yards (73 meters), release for a further deceleration to a 17mph splashdown.
Coast Guard and Nasa recovery crews were positioned to cover a landing zone about 550 miles in diameter. After medical checks following hatch opening and a brief stopover at a San Diego military base, the crew’s next destination is Houston’s Johnson Space Center, which they last saw on 27 March, and a reunion with their families.
The four join only 24 other astronauts, all American men, who travelled to the moon and back during nine staffed Apollo missions between December 1968 and December 1972.
Nicky Fox, associate administrator of Nasa’s science mission directorate, summed up the importance and impact of the mission in a briefing with reporters this week.
“Our four Artemis II astronauts, Reid, Victor, Christina and Jeremy, took humanity on an incredible journey around the moon and brought back images so exquisite and brimming with science, they will inspire generations to come,” she said.
