How the collapse of USAID could unleash ‘an ISIS army in waiting’

In the northeast corner of Syria, the Al Hol refugee camp is three days away from crisis. For years, tens of thousands have been stuck in the camp. Al Hol is a sea of tents amid the desert — one that houses the wives, children, and families of Islamic State fighters, along with thousands displaced by Syria’s decade-long war. For years, organizations funded by USAID and the U.S. Department of State have been responsible for maintaining camps such as Al Hol — providing food, fuel, and essentials for the 40,000 detained there. And for years, experts have warned that if those organizations walk away, the camps will become a recruiting ground for terrorist organizations. “Most people think the war with ISIS is over,” said Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, speaking during a visit to Al Hol in 2022. “They don’t think about how you repair the damage. What do you do with the prisoners?” But now, that’s looking like a possibility. By Monday, the two-week waiver granted to coordinate Al Hol’s relief operations will expire. And even if that waiver is renewed, there’s no guarantee that the money will come along with it. The organization leading those operations — the Virginia-based nonprofit Blumont — has not been paid by the U.S. government since President Donald Trump’s stop-work orders began. “We need a waiver, but we also need funding,” an official at Blumont, the organization managing those relief operations, told Devex on Thursday. “Neither the waiver on its own nor the funding is going to let the work continue. It’s both.” For nearly a decade, Blumont has kept Al Hol’s operations running. As the managers for both Al Hol and Roj — a smaller camp nearby — the organization registers new arrivals, communicates with residents, and coordinates the services of other groups providing humanitarian aid. Blumont also distributes food, heaters, fuel, and necessities throughout the camps’ 41,000 people, and maintains their water, sanitation, and electricity systems. The majority of Blumont’s Al Hol staff come from Northeast Syria, and after more than eight years in the camp, they’ve become an essential part of the support system there. Those workers have also played a major role in repatriation efforts, with the Iraqi government recently agreeing to take back all Iraqi families stranded in the camp by 2027. “The reality is when people suddenly don’t have the food, water, shelter, and opportunities that they have relied on, communities are going to look elsewhere,” a humanitarian official familiar with the situation told Devex. “And in those places, it is groups like ISIS who are looking to capitalize on the confusion.” Al Hol has long been seen as a tinderbox. It’s the reason why U.S. lawmakers have supported aid and security support for the Al Hol camp. Its over 40,000 residents cannot leave the camp’s gates, and within its open-air walls, ISIS ideology has retained a stronghold. Left unaddressed, U.S. military leaders have said Al Hol will turn into “an ISIS army in waiting.” “You literally have U.S. government-funded workers protecting these populations, guarding prisons where we know there are hundreds of ISIS former fighters that could break out,” said Diana Rayes, a nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Syria Project. “This area of the country is on the verge, and instability could contribute to a resurgence of ISIS.” But on Jan. 24, all of Blumont’s work — and that of Proximity International, which was training the camp’s security forces — came to a standstill. The organizations were just two of thousands affected by President Donald Trump’s stop-work order, a directive that shattered the aid sector earlier this month. By Jan. 28, Blumont became one of the few organizations to receive a waiver for lifesaving humanitarian aid, an exception approved by Secretary of State — and now acting USAID administrator — Marco Rubio in late January. But even the impact of those three days was staggering. Some residents thought all food, heating oil, and other necessities would be suspended for three months, a Blumont staff member said. Others thought that the suspension was a trick, something to spark riots in the camp and make it easy for countries to cancel repatriation agreements with their home countries. And still others thought the halt in aid meant they were going to be killed, or that the camp was going to be taken over by Turkey. “They were scared. They were angry,” the Blumonth staffer added. “Their concerns were driven primarily by uncertainty and lack of information … and that was just within that Saturday to Monday period.” Blumont was facing uncertainty, too. While they’d been given a waiver to continue operations, the organization hadn’t received the funds to do so — despite having signed a contract with the State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration through 2025. It’s a challenge that countless organizations have brought up to Devex: Even if they get a waiver, there is no money to back it up. USAID’s payment system has been shut off, according to USAID staffers — and after ceaseless cuts to the agency’s staff, there’s hardly anyone left to process waivers or manage awards. “We’ve been doing our best to carry the costs of the work that we’ve done and haven’t been paid for,” the Blumont official said. “At this point, we’ve exhausted our funds.” When the foreign aid freeze began, Blumont was already owed $7 million from the U.S. government for past programming. They’re far from alone: Across the sector, organizations are owed millions of dollars for the work they completed before the foreign aid freeze began, with several groups telling Devex they’re owed tens of millions of dollars for work done months ago. “Camp coordinators are frazzled, the agencies that are providing this aid are falling into debt, and what I’m mostly afraid of is the precedent that this sets for any kind of waiver that’s issued in the coming weeks,” said Rayes. “We’ve really lost the trust of our partners on the ground.” To keep the Syria program afloat, Blumont reshuffled its finances. It laid off more than half of its U.S.-based team. And now, it’s looking at further cuts to its staff. Like so many organizations across the world, Blumont is scrambling for a lifeline. And the lives of Al Hol’s residents — and Blumont’s staff — are in balance. Devex asked the State Department whether Blumont’s waiver would be renewed, and what the plan was for the over 40,000 residents of Al Hol. We have not received an answer at the time of publication, and Blumont hasn’t either. “What happens next depends on what we receive from the State Department,” the staffer said. “And we have not received any guidance yet.”