{"id":416960,"date":"2026-05-07T22:17:16","date_gmt":"2026-05-07T22:17:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/416960\/"},"modified":"2026-05-07T22:17:16","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T22:17:16","slug":"three-isis-linked-women-arrested-after-arriving-back-in-australia-from-syria-via-doha","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/416960\/","title":{"rendered":"Three ISIS-linked women arrested after arriving back in Australia from Syria via Doha"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Bridget Rollason, Leonie Thorne, Judd Boaz and Melissa Brown, ABC<\/p>\n

\"Janai<\/p>\n

\nJanai Safar was arrested by police upon her arrival in Sydney.
\nPhoto: ABC News\n<\/p>\n

A woman linked to ISIS is facing a terrorism charge and two others are accused of slavery offences after returning to Australia on Thursday night from Doha.<\/p>\n

The women were arrested at Sydney and Melbourne airports, two weeks after they left a refugee camp in Syria.<\/p>\n

One group touched down at Melbourne Airport shortly before 5.30pm this evening, while a woman and her child landed in Sydney on a separate flight about 15 minutes later.<\/p>\n

The two women arrested in Melbourne are believed to be 53-year-old Kawsar Abbas and 31-year-old Zeinab Ahmed, while the woman arrested in Sydney is believed to be 32-year-old Janai Safar.<\/p>\n

Trio face multiple charges including crimes against humanity<\/p>\n

AFP assistant commissioner counter terrorism Stephen Nutt held a press conference in Canberra, announcing the women arrested in Melbourne would be charged with crimes against humanity, including enslavement.<\/p>\n

The woman believed to be Kawsar Abbas was also accused of slave trading.<\/p>\n

“Both offences carry a maximum penalty of 25 years imprisonment,” he said.<\/p>\n

Nutt said a 32-year-old woman arrested in Sydney would be charged with being a member of a terrorist organisation and entering or remaining in a declared area.<\/p>\n

The charges carry maximum 10-year prison terms.<\/p>\n

\"Assistant<\/p>\n

\nAssistant commissioner Stephen Nutt says the maximum penalty for each of the proposed charges is a decade or more behind bars.
\nPhoto: ABC News\n<\/p>\n

He said he expected all three women would appear in courts in Melbourne and Sydney as early as tomorrow.<\/p>\n

Nutt said the offences were alleged to have occurred in Syria, with the police operation stretching back to 2015.<\/p>\n

“I’m not going to talk in any specific detail about any case because the matters are before the court,” he said.<\/p>\n

He did not comment on any concerns about the community’s reaction to the group returning to Australia.<\/p>\n

“All I can say is safety of the community is the number one priority for all agencies involved,” he said.<\/p>\n

Nutt would not comment on the children who were accompanying the women on the flights to Australia.<\/p>\n

The cohort, referred to by some politicians as the “ISIS brides”, are a group of women who moved to Syria during the height of the Islamic State movement then got trapped there after the group’s territorial “caliphate” was defeated in 2019.<\/p>\n

\"Women<\/p>\n

\nOne group arrived in Melbourne on Thursday evening on a Qatar Airways flight.
\nPhoto: ABC News\n<\/p>\n

Thousands of foreign family members of suspected and deceased Islamic State operatives were detained in refugee camps in north-eastern Syria, where many have remained since.<\/p>\n

Thirteen Australians – four women and nine children – left the Al Roj camp on 24 April, and are understood to have been based in Syria’s capital Damascus before booking their flights home this week.<\/p>\n

IS-linked women and children arrive to media frenzy<\/p>\n

A group of men dressed in black waited several hours for some of the group to clear customs and immigration in Melbourne.<\/p>\n

Nearly three hours after the flight landed, a group of women and children emerged and headed for the exits.<\/p>\n

There were minor scuffles with media as the men escorted the group, including young children, to a waiting minibus.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

\nA group of men waited at international arrivals at Melbourne Airport after the flight landed, but did not speak to media.
\nPhoto: ABC News \/ Kate Ashton\n<\/p>\n

Heavily-armed police officers supervised the exit, following the throng of reporters who peppered questions at the departing group about their allegiance to IS.<\/p>\n

Several masked men in the escorting group shouted “don’t touch me!” and “move out of my way” to media.<\/p>\n

The case has become a political headache for the federal government, which has for months condemned the group’s actions and warned they would receive no assistance from Australia.<\/p>\n

Federal police yesterday confirmed some of the women would be arrested and charged after returning to Australia.<\/p>\n

The charges, AFP commissioner Krissy Barrett said, could include “terrorism offences, such as entering or remaining in declared areas, and crimes against humanity offences such as engaging in slave trading”.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

\nThe group made a chaotic exit from Melbourne Airport towards a waiting vehicle, tailed by media.
\nPhoto: ABC News\n<\/p>\n

Investigations into some women will also continue after their return to Australia, Barrett said.<\/p>\n

It is understood 21 Australians still remain in the Al Roj camp in north-eastern Syria.<\/p>\n

One passenger on the flight said he had no idea he was on the same plane as the women and children until he arrived and saw the media presence.<\/p>\n

But he said he wasn’t concerned about their arrival in Australia.<\/p>\n

“Because of where we are in Lebanon we constantly see that stuff all the time,” he said.<\/p>\n

“The picture they paint of them is different than what people see in reality. Everyone, I guess, has a different opinion.”<\/p>\n

\"Police<\/p>\n

\nPolice were on hand as the media and the men escorting the women and children jostled their way out of Melbourne Airport.
\nPhoto: ABC News \/ Kate Ashton\n<\/p>\n

Families say life in Syria was ‘hell’<\/p>\n

The extent of the federal government’s involvement in the case has also come under scrutiny, after the Syrian government last week said it had prevented the group from reaching Damascus because “the Australian government had refused to receive them”.<\/p>\n

Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke yesterday said the federal government was not involved in the Syrian government’s actions.<\/p>\n

But overnight, a Syrian government official told the ABC the Australian government was the “deciding factor” in whether or not the group could leave Syria.<\/p>\n

In response, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said it never asked the Syrian government to delay the group’s return. Other federal government departments were also contacted for comment.<\/p>\n

For months, Australian officials have said that while they will not help the ISIS-linked families return home, they did not have the power to stop them.<\/p>\n

\"Heavily-armed<\/p>\n

\nHeavily-armed police were on hand as the women emerged from the departure gate.
\nPhoto: ABC News\n<\/p>\n

All of the women and children are Australian citizens and hold Australian passports.<\/p>\n

One of the women who is believed to still be in the Al Roj camp is subject to a Temporary Exclusion Order, which puts restrictions on travelling to Australia for up to two years.<\/p>\n

At the airport in Doha, Qatar, before boarding their flight to Melbourne, some of the women told the ABC they were excited to return home.<\/p>\n

“We just want our children to be safe. It was like hell [in Syria] for them,” one of the women said.<\/p>\n

Australia’s special envoy to combat Islamophobia, Aftab Malik, said the return of the women placed the broader Muslim community in a “deeply challenging position”.<\/p>\n

He urged Australians not to allow Muslim Australians to be unfairly targeted.<\/p>\n

“Let the legal processes proceed fully and fairly as these families arrive, with regard for due process and human rights,” he said.<\/p>\n

“Our compassion must focus on the vulnerable children who were born into unimaginable circumstances with risks of statelessness, while recognising their innocence and the long-term impact on their wellbeing.”<\/p>\n

-ABC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Bridget Rollason, Leonie Thorne, Judd Boaz and Melissa Brown, ABC Janai Safar was arrested by police upon…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":416961,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[48,47,42,43,49,46,44,45,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-416960","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-audio","tag-current-affairs","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-podcasts","tag-public-radio","tag-radio-new-zealand","tag-rnz","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416960","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=416960"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416960\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/416961"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=416960"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=416960"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=416960"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}