ISIS women and kids back with families

The 17 Australian women and children repatriated from Syria have been released from their ­secure accommodation in Sydney and returned to their extended families.

Kamalle Dabboussy, father of one of the ISIS brides, in Sydney on Saturday. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Monique Harmer

The 17 Australian women and children repatriated from a camp for Islamic State families in Syria have been released from their ­secure accommodation in Sydney and returned to their extended families.

The four mothers had spent the past two days speaking to law enforcement officials, after flying in with their 13 children on Saturday, accompanied by DFAT and Home Affairs officials who took them out of al-Roj detention camp in Syria last week.

They are part of a group of 16 women and 42 children – the wives, widows and children of dead or detained ISIS members – who have been held in the camps without charge for three years and seven months.

The families, who are all from NSW, will live in suburban Sydney. No Melbourne families were included in the repatriation mission.

None of the family members has been charged by the Australian Federal Police. It seems unlikely the first four women repatriated would face charges, ­although others in the camp could, including for entering the proscribed area of Raqqa, Islamic State’s former headquarters, a crime that carries a maximum 10-year jail term.

The AFP declined to comment.

At issue would be what responsibility the women bore for the ­decision to travel to the so-called caliphate – whether they chose to go, or whether, as they claim, they were forced or tricked by their husbands and families.

One of the women returned on Saturday was taken there by her parents and married off at 15.

Peter Dutton said the “likelihood of any of these women going to jail, on everything I’ve read, seems to be quite remote”.

“If somebody is charged with an offence, I suspect they’re not going to be in jail for a long period of time,’’ the Opposition Leader said.

He reiterated his concern about the decision to bring the families back.

The women and some of the older children will be closely monitored by the AFP and ASIO, along with the NSW Police, who work in joint counter-terrorism task forces with the federal agencies.

The Australian Federal Police Association expressed concern that last week’s budget appeared to contain no new money specifically to support the families’ ­repatriation. Association president Alex Caruana said: “As the ­initiative continues, I’ll liaise with the Attorney-General regarding funding for the AFP along with ­security assessments and possible deradicalisation schemes for people who are returning to Australia from Syria.”

The NSW government, which agreed in advance to accept the families, continued to push for ­answers from the Albanese government about precisely how the rehabilitation and reintegration of the families would be funded.

Premier Dominic Perrottet had not received answers to questions he put to Anthony Albanese and Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil on what the funding split would be. While the federal government will fund surveillance and monitoring of the women through ASIO and the AFP, the funding for basic services such as education support, counselling, dentistry and other medical costs has not been agreed upon.

Some of the women and older children may also have to attend the NSW government’s deradicalisation program.

Ordinarily the costs would be borne by the state government that provides the services, but the Perrottet government was concerned about absorbing the costs of not just these 13 children, but a number of the 29 others who ­remain in al-Roj camp, and who are likely to be brought back in coming months with their mothers. Some of the families are likely to have complex needs that will need more interaction with state agencies.

Ms O’Neil’s office did not ­respond to questions.

The Prime Minister reiterated that the opposition had brought home children from Syria in 2019, and said his government’s “one and only priority’ was to keep Australians safe. “We’re following ­national security advice on all of those matters and will continue to do so,’’ he said.

The political split over the decision to repatriate the families continued to deepen, with opposition home affairs spokeswoman Karen Andrews repeating that the decision was “unacceptable’’.

Ms Andrews rejected an equivalence between the return of the families and the former Coalition government’s decision to repatriate two groups of orphans in 2019.