A group of ISIS brides and their children were only able to board flights back to Australia after Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s Labor government gave the go-ahead, Syria says.
Four women and nine children flew out of Damascus on Wednesday night and will land in Sydney and Melbourne on Thursday night, after leaving the notorious Al-Roj refugee camp covered head to toe in burqas in late April.
The Muslim group, who managed to obtain new Australian passports, were delayed for nearly two weeks after the Australian government told Syria it needed to put “procedures in place”, ABC News reported.
A Syrian government official said the Australian government was the “deciding factor” in the departure.
“The Australian government had the ultimate authority. The ball was entirely in the court of the Australians,” the official said.
Mr Albanese and other government ministers have repeatedly denied facilitating the arrival of the ISIS brides and their children, who most Australians think should not be allowed to return due to their links to the Islamist terror group.
Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke said on Wednesday the government had been notified about the booked flights on Wednesday morning, and Australian Federal Police Commissioner Krissy Barrett said “some individuals” would be arrested and charged on arrival.
“Children who return in the cohort will be asked to undergo community integration programs, therapeutic support and Countering Violent Extremism programs,” Ms Barrett said.
Three ISIS brides, Kawsar Abbas, her two adult daughters, Zahra and Zeinab Ahmad, and their eight children are headed for Melbourne, while Abbas’ niece Janai Safar and her child will land in Sydney.
Abbas is married to Mohammed Ahmad, who police believe funnelled money to ISIS via a charity he ran, and their son Omar joined the terror group. Zahra was the second wife of ISIS recruiter Muhammad Zahab, who was killed in 2018, and Safar also married an ISIS militant.
In February 34 ISIS-linked women and children from 11 families left the camp in northeastern Syria but were turned back, and Mr Burke has blocked one woman from returning with a two-year Temporary Exclusion Order but has not put measures in place to stop the rest from returning.
A poll conducted after the February departure attempt found that 64% of voters opposed allowing the wives and family members of ISIS brides to to return to Australian, with just 15% in support.
Of the February group, one third were bound for NSW and Premier Chris Minns confirmed the children would be supported by the state government, while the remaining two thirds were expected to settle in Victoria.
Some of the ISIS brides and children in that cohort had spent time in a different refugee camp, Al-Hol, a radicalisation hub where jihadist women hid teenage boys in tunnels and sexually abused them to get pregnant.
Header image: Left, Australian ISIS brides pose with AK-47s in 2015. Right, leaving the Al-Roj camp (supplied).
