‘Didn’t do anything wrong’: Islamic State nurse pleads to come home to Australia

An Australian member of Islamic State group has begged to come home from a Syrian prison, claiming he “didn’t do anything wrong”.

Mahir Absar Alam wants to return home to Australia after travelling to Syria to join Islamic State.

An Australian member of the Islamic State terror group has begged to come home from a Syrian prison, claiming he “didn’t do anything wrong”.

Mahir Absar Alam, 29, has been held in the city of Hasakah for the past three years after being captured by Kurdish forces with his wife and two children near the village of Baghouz.

He is one of about a dozen Australian men who have been detained without charge since the fall of Islamic State.

Speaking to The Australian, Alam said be believed it was his first contact with the outside world since ASIO officers visited him in 2019.

“I don’t have any problem with the Australian government or my country,” he told the newspaper. “I love Australia and I didn’t do anything wrong in Australia. I want to come back.”

Mahir Absar Alam wants to return home to Australia.

The former Swinburne University accounting student, who was born in Sydney to Bangladeshi parents and raised in the South Australian town of Loxton, left Australia to join the “caliphate” in 2014 after seeing a story about Syria on A Current Affair – but claims he was never a fighter and only ever worked as a nurse.

“They were showing a program on the situation in Syria and how people were suffering,” he said. “I was watching the show and they were calling for people to come to help the Islamic country. I wanted to come to help because I didn’t have anything to do in Australia.”

He said he was willing to face courts in Australia and accepted possible jail time, insisting he did not pose a threat.

“I don’t have any problem with Australian government or the Australian country,” he said. “I wouldn’t do anything to hurt it. I’m not dangerous to Australia.”

In 2019, Alam told the ABC he was not going to “come stab someone with a knife”.

“I’ve seen rivers of blood flow, I’ve seen … innocent women and children killed for nothing but going shopping, nothing but sitting at home trying to feed their family,” he said.

“I’m willing to do literally anything to come back to Oz right now. I’ve been willing to come back for a long time but it’s just been very difficult to come back.

“People need to understand that we didn’t rape, we didn’t kill, I didn’t set anyone on fire. We’re not that majority that’s going to come stab someone with a knife – we’re not going to do anything horrible like that.”

Militants attacked a prison in northeastern Syria in January. Picture: SDF

Alam’s wife and two sons are reportedly living in the community somewhere around Hasakah, the Kurdish-controlled northeastern Syrian town that remains under threat from Islamic State.

More than 5000 men suspected of being members of the terror group are currently detained in prisons around the city.

In January, Islamic State attacked Guweiran prison with a truck bomb and hundreds of fighters, with more than 500 people killed in the ensuing battle that lasted for 11 days.

This week, the family of a Sydney teenager who had been detained in the men’s prison claimed the 17-year-old was believed to have been killed in the attack.

Yusuf Zahab was taken to Syria when he was 11 and had been locked up in the prison since the age of 14.

His family have spoken of their devastation as they plead with the Albanese government to do more to repatriate the more than 40 Australian children and their mothers who have been living in camps for Islamic State families in northeast Syria.

In a statement, the Sydney-based Zahab family said Yusuf grew up like any other Australian kid in southwest Sydney – going to school, playing with his cousins and enjoying sport on the weekends.

Islamic State wives and children at Camp Roj. Picture: Delil Souleiman/AFP

“He was a happy child who showed care and compassion to those around him,” his family said. “Even in the final messages we received from Yusuf, he asked us to tell his mum that he loved and missed her.’’

The family said the Morrison government knew about Yusuf’s situation for more than three years, but they were unaware of any efforts to support or inquire about him.

“Other Australian children will also die unless immediate action is taken,” they said.

Save the Children Australia chief executive officer Mat Tinkler condemned Yusuf’s reported death as a “shocking and terrible tragedy”.

Mr Tinkler said the news should serve as “a wake-up call” for the Albanese government.

“We repeatedly warned the previous government of the risks to Australian children who have been trapped in Syria for more than three years,” he said.

“The Albanese government must act quickly to protect the remaining Australian children in Syria. It has never been clearer that time is running out.”

A spokesman for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said on Monday afternoon it was seeking to confirm that Yusuf had been killed.

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– With NCA NewsWire

Originally published as ‘Didn’t do anything wrong’: Islamic State nurse pleads to come home to Australia