MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Two planes carrying 19 Australian women and children linked to the Islamic State group in Syria landed in Melbourne and Sydney on Tuesday, despite Australia's government warning that the returnees could face charges.
The government earlier confirmed seven women and 12 children were heading home on Qatar Airways flights, less than three weeks after a group of 13 people in similar situations returned to Australia’s two largest
cities.
Two women with seven children flew to Melbourne. Four women with six children landed about an hour later in Sydney, a joint police and intelligence agency statement said.
No one had been charged on arrival, but investigations into their activities in Syria were continuing, the statement said. Three of four women who returned home earlier were charged with slavery and terrorism offenses and remain behind bars.
Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke said anyone among the 19 on their way to Australia who has committed crimes "can expect to face the full force of the law.”
“The government has not and will not provide any assistance to this group,” Burke said in a statement.
“These are people who have made the horrific choice to join a dangerous terrorist organisation and to place their children in an unspeakable situation,” he added.
Australian law enforcement and intelligence agencies have been preparing for their return since 2014 and have long-standing plans in place to manage and monitor them, Burke said.
“The priority of the government, as always, is the safety of the Australian community,” he said.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese had earlier told Parliament: “I have nothing but contempt for anyone who has any sympathy for ISIS,” referring to IS by an acronym for the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.
The bid by general practice doctor Jamal Rifi, a community leader in Sydney’s Lebanese Muslim diaspora, to return 34 Australian women and children from Syria failed in February. Syrian authorities blocked their convoy's route to Damascus and turned them back to Roj camp, a location in northeast Syria near the Iraq border where people linked to IS have been held since IS forces in the Middle East were defeated in 2019.
Riji told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. on Tuesday that Syrian authorities had since been persuaded that the majority of Australians in Roj were children who had a legal right to grow up in Australia.
“These women are caring mothers,” he said of the 19 women who just landed in Australia.
“Definitely joining willingly the death cult of the un-Islamic caliphate, it’s a terrible decision. Some of these women, I believe they were tricked to go there. Some of them are victims of the death cult and others are not," Riji said.
After the departure of the latest group, at least two Australians remain in Roj camp, including a mother who was prevented from returning to Australia in February by a temporary exclusion order.
Exclusion orders were created by laws introduced in 2019 to prevent defeated IS fighters from returning to Australia for up to two years.
The woman, aged around 29, had remained at Roj with her daughter, who had been disabled by shrapnel wounds, The Australian newspaper reported. She left her Sydney home at the age of 18 in 2015 to marry an IS fighter in Syria, the newspaper reported.
Her family has engaged a Sydney lawyer to challenge the order, which bars the mother from Australia until February 2028.
The last Australian cohort returned from Syria on May 7, similarly without government help.
Kawsar Ahmed, also known Kawsar Abbas, 53, and her daughter Zeinab Ahmed, 31, were arrested when they landed in Melbourne over allegations that their family had bought a female Yazidi slave.
Janai Safar, 32, was arrested at Sydney Airport when she arrived with her 9-year-old son on charges of being a member of a terrorist organization and of entering or remaining in a region controlled by a terrorist organization.
Australian governments have repatriated Australian women and children from Syrian detention camps on two occasions. Other Australians have returned quietly without government assistance.
