MELBOURNE, Australia — A number of Australian women with alleged ties to Islamic State group militants will be arrested and face criminal investigations if they return from Syria, police said Wednesday.
The Australian government had been alerted Wednesday that four women and nine children had booked flights from Damascus to Australia, Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke said. He did not say when they were expected to arrive.
Australian Federal Police since 2015 have been investigating the behavior of Australians who had traveled to the Islamic State group’s so-called caliphate that had been centered in Syria, Police Commissioner Krissy Barrett said.
Investigations had included potential terrorism offenses and crimes against humanity such as slave trading, she said.
“Some individuals will be arrested and charged. Some will face continued investigations when they arrive in Australia,” Barrett told reporters.
The children would undergo programs to counter violent extremism, she said.
The government was required to provide the group travel documents but has repeatedly said it was not helping repatriate them.
“The individuals concerned traveled … in support of one of the most horrific terrorist organizations we’ve seen in recent history or in our lifetimes,” Burke told reporters.
“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,” he added.
The women were held in Roj Camp near Syria’s border with Iraq. They left the camp last week, but the Syrian government told The Associated Press then that the Australian government had “refused to receive them.”
Burke said there was little his government could do to prevent their return. “There are very serious limits on what can be done with respect to preventing a citizen of a country returning to their country,” Burke said.
A previous attempt to return 34 women and children to Australia from the same camp in February was turned back by Syrian authorities.
On that occasion, Australia’s government banned one of the women from returning.
The woman, whom the government did not identify, had been issued with a temporary exclusion order which Australia can use to prevent high-risk citizens from returning for up to two years.
The orders were created by laws introduced to in 2019 to prevent defeated Islamic State fighters from returning to Australia. There are no public reports of an order being issued before.
Such orders can’t be made against children younger than 14. But 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.
Former Islamic States fighters from multiple countries, along with their wives and children, were held in a network of camps and detention centers in northeast Syria after the militant group lost control of its territory in Syria in 2019. Though defeated, the group still has fighters that carry out attacks in Syria and Iraq.
The larger al-Hol camp has now been closed, and thousands of suspected IS militants previously held in Syria were transferred to Iraq by the U.S. military to stand trial there.
The moves came after fighting between government forces and the SDF in January. Government forces seized much of the territory formerly held by the SDF. Amid the chaos, many detainees fled al-Hol and some prisoners escaped from a detention center.
Australian governments have repatriated Australian women and children from Syrian detention camps on two occasions. Other Australians have returned without government assistance.
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