Melbourne, 08 May (H.S.): Two Australian women, a mother and daughter aged 53 and 31, faced immediate arrest upon landing at Melbourne International Airport on Thursday evening, accused by federal police of grave crimes against humanity during their time supporting the Islamic State in Syria. The pair, who had journeyed to Syria in 2014 amid the group's rise, allegedly participated in the enslavement of a woman under IS's self-proclaimed caliphate, with the older woman implicated in her $10,000 purchase and the younger in her ongoing captivity at their home.
Detained by Kurdish forces in 2019 following the caliphate's collapse, they spent years in Syria's notorious Roj camp before securing temporary passports and commercial flights via Qatar Airways.
This incident forms part of a larger return involving four women and nine children from the Roj facility, marking one of Australia's most significant repatriations of IS-affiliated citizens since the group's territorial defeat. While a third woman, Janai Safar, 32, was separately detained in Sydney on charges of entering a restricted zone and joining a terrorist entity after traveling to join her IS-member husband in 2015, the fourth woman evaded arrest pending further inquiry.
Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke condemned their decisions as a horrific choice, underscoring Australia's legal obligation to readmit citizens despite national security risks, amid ongoing debates over exclusion orders and surveillance.
Hundreds of Western women, including Australians, were drawn to IS strongholds like Raqqa in the early 2010s, often following spouses or family into jihadist ranks, only to face stranding post-2019. Prior returns in 2019, 2022, and 2025 involved smaller groups, some claiming coercion or entrapment, though public sentiment remains divided between humanitarian pleas from groups like Australia's Human Rights Commission and calls for permanent exclusion.
Australian Federal Police counter-terrorism chief Stephen Nutt emphasized the active probe into these very serious allegations, as the nation grapples with reintegrating or prosecuting its estimated dozens of stranded IS-linked nationals.
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Hindusthan Samachar / Jun Sarkar
