The Kurdish administration in northeastern Syria has announced that it will start trying suspected foreign fighters of the Islamic State, who have been in their custody for many years, which surprised diplomats dealing with the issue, Reuters reports.

The US-backed Kurdish administration, operating separately from the Central Government of Syria, holds about 10,000 people suspected of being members of IS who fled in 2017-2019.

For many years, the local authorities have been calling on foreign countries, including Canada, France, Great Britain and others, to return their citizens to their homeland, as well as thousands of foreign women and children who escaped from the self-proclaimed “caliphate” of IS and are in detention camps.

On Saturday, the administration of the Kurds announced that it had decided to conduct its own “open, free and transparent trials.”

Badran Jia Kurd, a senior Kurdish administration official, told Reuters that the local anti-terrorism law, expanded last year, would be used to try the militants, adding that defendants could appoint a lawyer.

The official said that human rights groups and the US-led coalition, which helped the Kurdish-led forces push IS out of vast areas of northern Syria, would be invited to the trials.