MELBOURNE — Australian authorities say several women with alleged links to Islamic State militants will be arrested and face criminal investigations if they return from Syria.
Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke said Wednesday the government was told four women and nine children had booked flights from Damascus to Australia. He did not specify when they were expected to arrive.
Australian Federal Police have been probing Australians who traveled to the Islamic State’s former territory since 2015, Police Commissioner Krissy Barrett said. Investigations have examined possible terrorism offenses and crimes against humanity, including allegations of slave trading.
“Some individuals will be arrested and charged. Some will face continued investigations when they arrive in Australia,” Barrett told reporters. She said the children would be enrolled in programs to counter violent extremism.
Burke said the government was required to issue travel documents but insisted it was not assisting repatriation. “The individuals concerned traveled … in support of one of the most horrific terrorist organizations we’ve seen in recent history or in our lifetimes,” he said. “There is a reason why the government has drawn a very hard line saying we will do nothing to assist. The government’s complete lack of support for these individuals is a direct reflection of the decisions that they made.”
The women had been held in Roj Camp near Syria’s border with Iraq and left the camp last week. Syrian authorities told The Associated Press earlier that Australia had “refused to receive them.”
Burke said Canberra had limited options to stop citizens returning. “There are very serious limits on what can be done with respect to preventing a citizen of a country returning to their country,” he said.
A February attempt to repatriate 34 women and children from the same camp was turned back by Syrian authorities. On that occasion, Australia issued a temporary exclusion order banning one woman from returning; the government did not identify her. The orders, created under 2019 laws aimed at keeping defeated Islamic State fighters out of the country, can bar high-risk citizens from returning for up to two years. Such orders cannot be imposed on children under 14, and the government has ruled out separating children from their mothers. Burke said the February exclusion order remains in place.
Under Australian law, traveling to the former IS stronghold of Raqqa between 2014 and 2017 without a legitimate reason is an offense punishable by up to 10 years in prison.
After the militant group lost territorial control in Syria in 2019, former fighters, their wives and children were held in camps and detention centers in northeastern Syria. Though the group was defeated territorially, IS-affiliated fighters continue to carry out attacks in Syria and Iraq.
The larger al-Hol camp has been closed, and thousands of suspected militants previously held in Syria were transferred to Iraq by U.S. forces to face trial. Those moves followed fighting in January between Syrian government forces and the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces; government forces seized much of the SDF’s territory, and amid the chaos many detainees fled al-Hol and some prisoners escaped from a detention center.
Australian governments have repatriated women and children from Syrian camps on two prior occasions, and other Australians have returned without government assistance.