BEIRUT — A Kurdish official in northern Syria says local authorities there have transferred eight American women and children who were captured with the Islamic State group back to the U.S.

Abdulkarim Omar says the group includes two women and six children. He says they were returned at the request of the U.S. government and based on their own desire to return “without any pressure or coercion.”

Omar didn’t identify the women and children involved.

It is the second such repatriation from Syria. Earlier this year, an American woman and four children were returned to the U.S.

Since the Islamic State group’s territorial defeat in Syria and Iraq, the issue of which authorities should prosecute IS foreign fighters and what to do with the families they left behind has become a priority.