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Sami Sheebo fears the return of Australia\u2019s so-called ISIS brides. He does not trust that seven years in a Syrian camp has cured them of the bloodthirsty Islamist ideology they travelled into and lived under.<\/p>\n
Sheebo is a leader of the Yazidi community in Australia. He escaped Iraq after IS fighters invaded his home village in 2014, where eight mass graves were required to bury the thousands killed. More than 6000 Yazidi women were kidnapped and put through the appalling horror of sexual and domestic slavery.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy community are very concerned that if returned [the IS-related families] might attack them again,\u201d Sheebo says simply.<\/p>\n
![\"Yazidi](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/9a056972d934618093ecb09ab1b6184b0fc676d9.jpeg\")
Yazidi community leader and ISIS survivor Sami Sheebo.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey work and build as a group. On a Friday, they gather, talking, trying to get people to join them. From a small group they become a big group. Others will join them and they control a whole suburb.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey will be a danger to Australian society.\u201d<\/p>\n
Youel Zaya and Ismail Ismail feel the same way. They escaped Syria after their Assyrian Christian village was overrun by IS fighters, who desecrated and destroyed their churches. Zeya, Ismail and their families were ordered to convert to Islam or leave. Among 200,000 others, they fled. More than a thousand who stayed behind were killed.<\/p>\n
I ask if they have any sympathy with the Australian children of IS-associated women. Zeya replies: \u201cThese children are raised there, and they\u2019ve been raised with this ISIS, so what are they thinking? What\u2019s in their minds? We really don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n
These fears are specific to the experiences of these groups, but they reflect the broader political debate over the IS women and children.<\/p>\n
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Assyrians Youel Zeya and Ismail Ismail were held captive by IS and told to convert to Islam.Sitthixay Ditthavong<\/p>\n
On the political left, the call is for the government to bring them home. The women were duped or forced to travel by their husbands, people say. The children have done nothing. On the other side of politics, these 11 women and 23 children \u2013 plus one young man<\/a> \u2013 are said to be so dangerous that they should be denied the right to enjoy their citizenship of Australia.<\/p>\n As Sheebo puts it: \u201cThey are responsible for their life \u2013 they made that decision by themselves and they have to accept that.\u201d<\/p>\n This debate prompts many questions. How and why did these people get to Syria and what did they do in the so-called caliphate? Did they commit crimes while there, and have they genuinely repudiated IS\u2019s ideology?<\/p>\n It\u2019s reasonable to ask \u2013 if we are to repatriate them \u2013 whether there are programs to reintegrate and deradicalise them and whether those programs are up to scratch.<\/p>\n Josh Roose, for one, is sceptical of some of the women\u2019s claims that they were duped, or bullied by their husbands into going to Syria. The associate professor at Deakin University and an expert on violent extremism says from the early days of IS in 2014, it was clear its ideology was violent.<\/p>\n It was also wildly attractive to some.<\/p>\n Based on the idea that Muslims had been crushed and persecuted globally, IS invited people \u2013 particularly marginalised second- and third-generation young Muslim men \u2013 to \u201cbecome warriors and heroes and knights of the caliphate\u201d.<\/p>\n Women would start a new society, breeding \u201clion cubs\u201d for a new utopia.<\/p>\n Says Roose, 200 or 300 Australians were attracted by this narrative, one of the largest cohorts proportionate to population in the world.<\/p>\n Once there, says Roose, western women in general were \u201chighly active in recruiting, and visual propaganda \u2026 and they were active in policing behaviour of women, enacting rules and laws, and enslavement of women and girls\u201d.<\/p>\n However, of the cohort seeking to return now, he says little is known about their activities in Syria and Iraq.<\/p>\n Analyst Rodger Shanahan has unpicked some of it. In a recent story in The Australian, he wrote that one of the women, Hodan Abby, said it would be \u201cgreat to be martyred for the sake of Allah\u201d. She wanted to \u201craise lions who will be thorns in the hearts of their enemies\u201d.<\/p>\n Melbourne-based Kirsty Rosse-Emile posted after coalition airstrikes, \u201cMay Allah destroy them all \u2026 destroy these filthy kafirs and protect our brothers and sisters.\u201d The ABC reported recently that Rosse-Emile was groomed by a much older man, married at 14 and was taken by him to Syria.<\/p>\n Kawsar Abbas travelled to Syria with her adult daughters Zahra and Zeinab to join her husband, their father Muhammad Ahmed. They insist their enterprise was charitable. But, writes Shanahan, Kawsar\u2019s brother Roger Abbas and two of her sons, Ahmed and Omar, were killed in Syria. and two of the daughters married men who were also killed in 2016.<\/p>\n Neither the government nor the Australian Federal Police has revealed what criminal charges, if any, might be laid against these women on their return. One temporary exclusion order has been issued, but authorities will not say against whom, or why.<\/p>\n \u201cUnless there is an extraordinary claim against them, we\u2019ll probably have to let them back in,\u201d says Roose.<\/p>\n However, \u201cthere should be every effort made to establish their culpability for their crimes overseas as a starting point\u201d.<\/p>\n This will be difficult. Eyewitnesses have probably died or melted back to their villages and specific crimes must be proved beyond reasonable doubt. Much would rely on foreign intelligence, he said.<\/p>\n Family advocate Kamalle Dabboussy was unavailable for comment this week, but in 2022 he told this masthead there was no evidence that they had been dangerous.<\/p>\n \u201cThey were solely protecting their children and they were in survival mode, to my knowledge\u201d.<\/p>\n Many women, he said, quickly regretted their lives. They were treated poorly, widowed and traded in marriage to unknown men. Under-age girls were also married off and quickly impregnated.<\/p>\n \u201cMen were allowed to exercise their base animalistic urges without any control \u2013 and very quickly, no matter why a woman turned up, she found herself with absolutely no agency,\u201d Dabboussy said at the time.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat\u2019s important now is that women have offered to work with law enforcement on return as evidenced by their offer to go under control orders by consent.\u201d<\/p>\n In 2019, 2022 and 2025, three groups of Australian women and children \u2013 32 people in total \u2013 returned from the camps. None have been convicted of a crime.<\/p>\n Related Article Advocates say community and government programs, delivered at state level, are working, and police keep a close watch. But despite requests, no woman or child has done an interview to show the community their progress.<\/p>\n Roose says many studies have shown people are never truly deradicalised, but they can be \u201cdisengaged\u201d from exercising their views through violence. The \u201cquiet reintegration\u201d of those who\u2019ve come back so far was encouraging.<\/p>\n Criminologist Dr Clarke Jones, who works with terrorist offenders and prison gangs, says each state has its own model and no deradicalisation program gets it right 100 per cent of the time. So far, he says the work with those who have returned from Syria has been successful: \u201cno untoward incidents \u2026 It\u2019s gone more smoothly than I would have thought.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"Iraqi](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/aa414b9a55a40020dd5d85fbb1093df0b35d7f14.jpeg\")
Iraqi Yazidi women mourn during the exhumation of a mass grave in Iraq’s north-western region of Sinjar.AP<\/p>\n![\"Kirsty](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/477fc03b18a919bdf6628df3dcb9d76935630288.jpeg\")
Kirsty Rosse-Emile, pictured with son Yahya in 2019.Kate Geraghty<\/p>\n![\"Kamalle](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/17c56f11e2afb719aef4810cbbd19619c55972e7.jpeg\")
Kamalle Dabboussy in 2022.Flavio Brancaleone<\/p>\n![\"Australian](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/1772217972_500_55a7ed78c1802253a38cfaa7e9a743df9651d838.jpeg\")
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