{"id":694009,"date":"2026-05-25T18:16:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-25T18:16:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/694009\/"},"modified":"2026-05-25T18:16:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-25T18:16:12","slug":"isis-linked-women-and-children-to-return-to-australia-within-days","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/694009\/","title":{"rendered":"ISIS-linked women and children to return to Australia within days"},"content":{"rendered":"

A group of Australian women and children with links to Islamic State fighters are expected to return home within days after purchasing airfares from Syria.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The ABC has confirmed the government is aware the group, which includes seven women and 13 children, have booked flights home.<\/p>\n

Nine members of the group are expected to arrive in Melbourne with the rest understood to be travelling to Sydney. Some of the women could face terror-related charges on arrival in Australia.<\/p>\n

Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke has stressed the government would not assist the cohort.<\/p>\n

\"a<\/p>\n

Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke has repeatedly stated the government is not assisting the cohort. (ABC News: Callum Flinn)<\/p>\n

“Australian Federal Police (AFP) operations preparing for returns from Syria have been in place since 2015. In that time many people, including 45 men who went to fight have returned,” Burke said in a statement on Monday.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“Our agencies are ready if these citizens choose to return.”<\/p>\n

The group of the so-called ISIS brides left the al-Roj camp in Syria’s north-east last Thursday afternoon local time. A bus carrying the group was travelling in a convoy with Syrian government officials acting as escorts.<\/p>\n

It is understood the group travelled to Damascus. It is believed it includes all the remaining Australians in the al-Roj camp, which local Kurdish authorities want to close.<\/p>\n

One of the women in the group is subject to a temporary exclusion order (TEO) which bans her from travelling to Australia for up to two years on national security grounds.<\/p>\n

Australian women and children leave Syrian IS camp<\/a><\/p>\n

The ABC has seen buses carrying the group, which left the al-Roj camp on Thursday afternoon, local time.<\/p>\n

All the women and children are Australian citizens and have travel documents. The government has repeatedly said it was legally required to provide them with passports.\u00a0<\/p>\n

However, it conceded there is little the government can do to stop citizens returning home, outside of issuing TEOs which is based on the threat to national security.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The group are the wives, widows and children of jailed and dead IS fighters who have been detained in the al-Roj camp since the fall of IS seven years ago.<\/p>\n

The government has repeatedly said any returning members of the cohort would “face the full force of the law”.<\/p>\n

Earlier this month, four women and children returned to Australia. Three of the women were arrested and charged by the AFP on arrival<\/a> in Melbourne and Sydney. They remain in custody.<\/p>\n

Two have been charged with slavery offences and the other with travelling to a declared terrorist area and being a member of a terrorist organisation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A group of Australian women and children with links to Islamic State fighters are expected to return home…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":669584,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,2322,44,84],"class_list":["post-694009","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-federal-politics","tag-news","tag-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/694009","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=694009"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/694009\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/669584"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=694009"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=694009"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=694009"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}