Australia's Most Controversial Homecoming: 13  ISIS-Linked Australians Touch Down

Thirteen Australian women and children linked to the Islamic State terrorist group returned to Australia on Thursday after spending years in a detention camp in Syria, in a case that has triggered years of political and security debate.

The group had been held in the al-Roj detention camp in northeastern Syria since 2019. Three women and eight children, reportedly members of the same family, landed in Melbourne late Thursday afternoon. Another woman and her child arrived in Sydney shortly afterward.

Australian police have said some of the women will be arrested and charged after arrival, while others remain under investigation. Possible charges include terrorism offenses such as entering or remaining in declared areas, as well as crimes against humanity offenses, including engaging in slave trading.

The Melbourne group has been identified in Australian reports as grandmother Kawsar Abbas, her adult daughters Zeinab and Zahra Ahmed, and their eight children. Abbas is married to Mohammad Ahmad, who ran a charity that Australian police have suspected was used to send money to ISIS. He denied the allegations in a 2019 interview with ABC after being located in a Syrian prison.

The woman who arrived in Sydney has been named in local media as Janai Safar, a former Sydney nursing student who traveled to Syria in 2015 and reportedly married an ISIS fighter. She returned with her nine-year-old son, who was born in Syria. In a 2019 interview, Safar said she had chosen to go to Syria and did not want to return to Australia because she feared arrest and separation from her child.

The 13 returnees are part of a broader group of 34 women and children believed to include wives, widows and children of ISIS fighters. They left the Syrian camp earlier this year but later returned for what were described as technical reasons, while the Australian government continued to refuse to formally repatriate them.

Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke said the government became aware Wednesday that the women were returning when tickets were booked. He said those who committed crimes should expect to face “the full force of the law.”

“These are people who have made the horrific choice to join a dangerous terrorist organisation and to place their children in an unspeakable situation,” Burke said.

Burke said Australian authorities had long-standing plans to manage and monitor members of the cohort. Mike Burgess, head of Australia’s domestic intelligence agency, said he was not immediately concerned by the group’s return but said they would receive close attention.

Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan said children returning to the state would be asked to participate in countering violent extremism programs.