Australian Government Prepares to Arrest Women with Alleged IS Ties Returning from Syria with Children

Australian women with alleged ties to Islamic State group militants will be arrested and face criminal investigations if they return from Syria, police said. The Australian government was alerted on Wednesday that four women and nine children had booked flights from Damascus to Australia, Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke said.

He did not specify when the four women and nine children were expected to arrive in Australia.

Burke added that the government’s complete lack of support for these individuals is a direct reflection of the decisions that they made. Australian Federal Police have been investigating the behavior of Australians who traveled to the Islamic State group’s caliphate centered in Syria since 2015, Police Commissioner Krissy Barrett said.

Those investigations have included potential terrorism offenses and crimes against humanity such as slave trading.

Barrett stated that the children would undergo programs to counter violent extremism. The Australian government was required to provide travel documents to the group, but has repeatedly said it was not helping repatriate the group. Burke said the government has drawn a very hard line saying it will do nothing to assist the individuals.

He noted there are very serious limits on what can be done with respect to preventing a citizen of a country returning to their country. The women were held in Roj Camp near Syria’s border with Iraq. They left Roj Camp last week.

The Syrian government told The Associated Press that the Australian government had refused to receive the women. Members of Australian families at Roj Camp in eastern Syria prepared to leave for Damascus as part of a second repatriation effort by Syrian authorities on Friday, April 24, 2026.

A soldier stood guard as vehicles arrived at the camp, which is surrounded by a brick wall and houses people with alleged ties to Islamic State militants, to transport the families.

AP reported these details from the scene. A previous attempt to return 34 women and children to Australia from Roj Camp in February was turned back by Syrian authorities. Australia’s government banned one of the women from returning during the February attempt.

The woman banned in February had been issued with a temporary exclusion order. Temporary exclusion orders can prevent high-risk citizens from returning for up to two years. Such orders were created by laws introduced in 2019 to prevent defeated Islamic State fighters from returning to Australia.

There are no public reports of a temporary exclusion order being issued before the February case. Temporary exclusion orders can’t be made against children younger than 14. Australia has ruled out separating children from their mothers.

Burke said the order made in February that banned the woman’s return remained in place. Under Australian law, it was an offense punishable by up to 10 years in prison to travel to the former Syrian Islamic State group stronghold of Raqqa without a legitimate reason from 2014 to 2017.