{"id":655747,"date":"2026-05-07T15:16:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-07T15:16:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/655747\/"},"modified":"2026-05-07T15:16:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T15:16:08","slug":"3-women-with-is-links-arrested-on-return-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/655747\/","title":{"rendered":"3 women with IS links arrested on return home"},"content":{"rendered":"

Australian<\/a> authorities arrested three women who arrived at Sydney and Melbourne airports after flying back from Syria<\/a> where they had allegedly supported fighters from the so-called “Islamic State” (IS)<\/a>, police said.<\/p>\n

The women, aged 31, 32 and 53, are all Australian citizens. They have spent the last few years in refugee camps in Syria after the downfall of IS.<\/p>\n

Another woman who was travelling with the group was not arrested. According to reports, nine children were also among the groups<\/a> flying back to Australia.<\/p>\n

Women welcomed by security and reporters<\/p>\n

Police said ahead of the arrivals that the women could be charged with “terrorism offences” after travelling to a banned area, as well as “crimes against humanity offences such as engaging in slave trading.”<\/p>\n

The groups of returnees were greeted by black-clad security personnel as well as throngs of journalists.<\/p>\n

Heavily-armed police officers were present to supervise the escorting of the women and children past the reporters to a minibus, the Australian public broadcaster ABC said.<\/p>\n

Australia not keen for return of citizens from Syria<\/p>\n

Australia, as well as countries like the UK and Canada, has been reluctant to bring back its citizens who traveled to Syria to support IS.<\/p>\n

Australian officials said they would not help IS-connected individuals to return, but also could not stop them.<\/p>\n

Some 21 Australians are still believed to be in the Al-Roj camp in north-eastern Syria, according to ABC.<\/p>\n

One of the returning women told the broadcaster she was looking forward to being back in Australia.<\/p>\n

“We just want our children to be safe. It was like hell [in Syria] for them,” she told ABC in Doha Airport before boarding the flight to Melbourne.<\/p>\n

Australian law considered travel to the former Syrian IS stronghold of Raqqa without a legitimate reason between 2014 and 2017 illegal.<\/p>\n

Edited by: Rana Taha<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Australian authorities arrested three women who arrived at Sydney and Melbourne airports after flying back from Syria where…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":655748,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-655747","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655747","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=655747"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655747\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/655748"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=655747"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=655747"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=655747"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}