Scott Morrison unmoved by calls to repatriate children of IS dead IS terrorist Khaled Sharrouf

The children of Australia’s worst terrorist have been found, but PM Scott Morrison has a simple message for their Aussie family.

The three remaining children of Australian Islamic State devotee couple Khaled Sharrouf and Tara Nettleton will continue to live in limbo after the Prime Minister rejected calls to bring them home.

The Sharrouf children and two of their grandchildren are waiting for help at the al-Hawl refugee camp in northern Syria where 60 children have already died.

The ABC reports Zaynab, 17, Hoda, 16, and Humzeh, 8, are all there, as well as Zaynab’s two children Ayesha, 3, and Fatima, 2.

It is the first knowing location for Australia’s most notorious terror family since the children fled Australia with their mother in 2014.

The children’s parents both died in the war zone but their grandmother Karen Nettleton says the children should be free to come home.

She told the ABC the federal government has a responsibility to intervene, saying they “shouldn’t be in amongst” all the other foreign fighters in the refugee camp.

But Prime Minister Scott Morrison is unmoved by the request for help.

“I’m not going to put one Australian life at risk to try and extract people from these dangerous situations,” he told reporters in Canberra today.

“I think it’s appalling that Australians have gone and fought against our values and our way of life and peace-loving countries of the world in joining the Daesh fight.

“I think it’s even more despicable that they put their children in the middle of it.”

The Sharroufs travelled to the conflict zone in 2014. Sharrouf went first, using his brother’s passport, and the family followed a few months later.

They almost immediately made international headlines when, in August of that same year, Sharrouf published shocking pictures of one of his children holding a severed head.

In other photos, the children posed with dead bodies hung from metal crosses.

Nettleton died in 2015 and Sharrouf and his two eldest sons — Abdullah and Zarqawi — died in an air strike in 2017.

Zaynab was just 13 when she married Sharrouf’s best friend and fellow Australian terrorist Mohamed Elomar. Elomar, like Sharrouf, died in an air strike.

The news comes as a Sydney tradie detained in the same region begs Australia for a second chance.

Mohammed Noor Masri, 26, says he joined IS without realising how brutal the terror group was and now wants to come home.

A child waits behind a wire fence door in al-Hawl camp. Picture: Delil Souleiman/AFP

The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age broke the story over the weekend from northern Syria where Mr Masri is locked up having surrendered as IS collapsed at Baghouz a month ago.

He has a pregnant wife and three young children in the Middle East.

In an interview with reporter David Wroe, Mr Masri says he made a “mistake” and that he is “remorseful” and “regretful”.

“It was scary,” he said. “It was terrifying. It was very hard. But I’m glad it’s over.”

He wants to be prosecuted in Australia, citing “human rights”, but that’s unlikely given the Morrison Government’s reluctance to repatriate Australians who choose to fight with terror groups.

He told Wroe that he didn’t know how brutal IS was until he got there.

“I didn’t see the heads on spikes … I didn’t see any heads or severed bodies and stuff like that. I wasn’t the type of person to be running around the shops too much … and I don’t like to see beheadings. I don’t like to see those sort of scenes. Nor do I agree with it.”

Wroe told the Today show this morning that he found the claim of ignorance hard to swallow.

“I will let the viewers read and watch and make up their own minds,” he said.

A Sydney tradesman who went to Syria to join ISIS has told @davidwroe he will accept whatever punishment he may get if his family is allowed to return to Australia. #9Today pic.twitter.com/QbORG14CwC

— The Today Show (@TheTodayShow) March 31, 2019

“I would point to the fact that in order to believe that he did not know the true nature of this organisation he would have had to close his eyes and his ears to evidence out there in

news media, on the internet, among conversations with people in the streets not to notice that they were brutal and sadistic and apocyliptic in their nature.

“You can believe him. You can believe that he thought that the media stories were absolute conspiracy, that it was just Islamophobia on the part of the media, but you need to believe that in order to say, “OK, he went over there innocently not understanding that this is actually the brutal organisation that it was.”

Mr Masri says he deserves a second chance because everybody “makes mistakes”. He says his children deserve a chance to grow up in Australia, too.

“It’s not my kids’ fault,” he said. “They’re just babies. They don’t even know what life is.”

As many as 85 Australians are believed to have been killed as a result of their involvement in IS’ war in the Middle East.

Scott Morrison has made it clear he does not want to bring Australian IS recruits home, but the Attorney-General’s Department told news.com.au those who do return will be dealt with severely.

“Any returning foreign fighters who have fought in the conflict zone, have been a member of the terrorist group, or have been in a declared area, will face the full extent of the law,” a spokesman said.

— with AAP