ISIS women and children flying home from Syria camps

Four Australian families linked to Islamic State are expected to ­arrive in Sydney on Saturday after being released from squalid detention camps in Syria.

From left at back, Mariam Dabboussy, Aminah Zahab, Shayma Assaad and Bessima Assaad, photographed in al-Roj camp in June with a number of the children who are being repatriated to Australia. Aminah Zahab is not among the group returning to Australia. Picture: Ellen Whinnett

Four Australian families linked to Islamic State are expected to ­arrive in Sydney on Saturday after being released from squalid detention camps in Syria where they have been detained for the past three years and seven months.

The four women and 13 children will be taken to secure hotel accommodation as a group, where they will spend an unknown period of time resting and debriefing with authorities before they will be allowed to return to the community and their extended families.

Some of them have spent up to a decade either in detention camps or living under Islamic State rule in Syria, after being taken to join the so-called Islamic State caliphate by their radicalised husbands or parents.

It’s not clear if any of the four women will face criminal charges relating to their time in Syria.

They were detained for more than 3½ years in the camps without charge. While all have offered to submit to terrorism control orders, it’s not clear they could be applied to them unless they were facing criminal charges.

The NSW government will now take the lead on reintegrating the families, providing medical and dental care, counselling, rehabilitation and other services to the families, which include children who range in age from three to 15.

ASIO, the NSW Police Force and Australian Federal Police will all monitor them.

None of the families is from Melbourne. It’s understood some Melbourne families in Syria have more complex needs, and that the Victorian government is keen to avoid potential controversy ahead of next month’s election.

The Weekend Australian understands the group made a low-key departure from the al-Roj camp in northeastern Syria about 7.30pm on Thursday night Australian time when Department of Home Affairs officials arrived to escort them out, along with the Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces who guard the camp.

The children, including one who was born in the camp, were excited by the journey across the border and over the Tigris River into Iraq, and were exhausted and fractious by the time they reached the city of Erbil, three hours south of the border.

The women were excited and happy to be going home, but their departure was “bittersweet’’, with 12 Australian women and their 29 children remaining in the camp.

The federal government was tight-lipped about the repatriation, with Home Affairs unhappy details of it had leaked before the families were back in Australia

Home Affairs secretary Mike Pezzullo declined to confirm to a parliamentary estimates hearing late on Friday that the operation was under way.

“Operational secrecy is to be preserved at all times,” he said.

 

He said a referral had been made to the AFP by the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet to investigate whether there had been a disclosure of national security information contrary to the provisions of the Criminal Code. His comment came after he was questioned about four articles which appeared in The Australian this month about the plan to ­repatriate the children.

Anthony Albanese said he would not provide public information on “ongoing issues’’ of national security, and urged his parliamentary colleagues to do the same.

“We will continue to act on ­national security advice, which is what we have done up to this point and what the former government did as well,’’ he said. “We will take that national security advice and we will always act in a way that keeps Australians safe.’’

It came as Peter Dutton reiterated his concerns about the repatriation of the families, saying: “I don’t believe that this is in our country’s best interests.’

“I obviously wish the families well, and I hope that the transition is successful,’’ the Opposition Leader told Sky News.

“But I do worry about people coming back from a theatre of war, particularly where they’ve been in a circumstance where they’ve been mixing with people who hate our country, hate our way of life; terrorists who have either committed terrorist offences or intend to commit those offences.

“In our positions, you’ve got to make decisions that are in our country’s best interests and the Prime Minister needs to stand up today and to explain to the Australian people why it’s in our country’s best interests and why we’re not compromising security here in our own country.’’

Mr Albanese responded by ­saying the previous Coalition government had also repatriated Australian children from the camps, when it brought back two family groups of orphans in 2019.

Save the Children Australia chief executive Mat Tinkler, who spent years campaigning for the families to be repatriated, said it was an “important milestone”.

“We highly commend the Australian government for following through on its promise to repatriate these innocent children and their mothers,’’ he said.

“While we look forward to celebrating the return of these children and their mothers, we know there are still over 30 Australian children stuck in the camps in northeast Syria and urge the government to repatriate them as quickly as possible.”

Fionnuala Ni Aolain, the UN Special Rapporteur on counter terrorism and human rights, said she was pleased to learn that Australia had repatriated some of its nationals.

“This much-needed leadership from the current Australian government on this issue comes at a critical time as the material conditions in the camps worsen. The Special Rapporteur warmly welcomes these returns and urges Australia to ensure that no child or woman is left behind as they continue the repatriation process.”

The families who have been removed from Syria included Shayma Assaad, 22, and her four children. Shayma was taken to Syria when she was just 15 and married to an older Islamic State member, Sydney tradie Mohammed Noor Masri, who remains in jail in Syria.

Shayma’s mother Bessima Assaad, and two of Shayma’s sisters, now aged 15 and 12, have also been repatriated. Bessima’s husband Ahmad Assaad is also believed to be in custody in Syria.

Mariam Raad, 31, and her four children have also been taken out of Syria. Mariam was the wife of the notorious Australian recruiter Muhammad Zahab, a Sydney maths teacher turned Islamic State fighter who recruited up to 20 members of his family to join the terror group in Syria. He was killed in an air strike.

The fourth family is Mariam Dabboussy, 31, and her three children. Mariam is the widow of Khaled Zahab, the radicalised younger brother of Muhammad Zahab, who also took his family to Syria. Khaled was also killed in an air strike.