A Melbourne grandmother whose husband allegedly funnelled money to ISIS and raped a Yazidi slave in their Syrian family home is among a group of women and children due to arrive in Australia today.
Four women and nine children are expected to land in Melbourne and Sydney on Thursday following a long struggle to return from the Al Roj camp in Syria, where they have been living for the past seven years.
The US has urged Australia to repatriate the women and children as it moves to shut down the refugee camps in Syria, which America helps fund and are expensive to operate.
Kawsar Abbas is expected to arrive in Melbourne at about 5.15pm on Qatar Airways flight QR904 with her two adult daughters, Zahra Ahmad and Zeinab Ahmed, who also married Islamic State fighters.
Zahra and Zeinab have eight children between them who are all expected to land in Melbourne. It’s understood the family travelled from Damascus to Doha before boarding the 14-hour flight home.
The family are also travelling with Janai Safar and her nine-year-old son, who are believed to be splitting off on a different Qatar Airways flight due to land in Sydney at 5.30pm.
The Albanese government pre-empted their return on Wednesday morning with an announcement firmly stating it did not seek or facilitate their arrival.
‘The government has not and will not provide any assistance to this group,’ Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said.
Four Australian women and nine children, linked to ISIS, will arrive in Australia on Thursda
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said his government has not facilitated their return
Zahra Ahmad will return to Melbourne after marrying an Islamic State fighter who recruited at least a dozen Australians to join the group
‘These are people who have made what is a horrific choice, to join a dangerous terrorist organisation and to place their children in an extraordinary situation.’
But Daily Mail political editor Peter van Onselen accused Albanese of trying to have it both ways politically by distancing himself from the controversial returns while still allowing them to proceed.
‘The government tells us it hasn’t facilitated their return, but Albanese is not blocking them from coming back, which is what the Opposition has repeatedly called for,’ van Onselen said.
‘He’s hiding behind legal advice that says it can’t stop Australian passport holders from returning. That’s a bit like someone saying they aren’t letting a person into their house when they already know they have a key.’
Van Onselen said Albanese and senior ministers were ‘speaking out of both sides of their mouth at the same time’.
‘On the one hand, they want to be adamant they’re not involved and aren’t helping to bring the ISIS brides and their children back to Australia,’ he said.
‘But on the other hand, they don’t want their left flank thinking they’re outright preventing it. They’re trying to walk both sides of this issue.’
However there will be no joyous homecoming for the group, with police expected to arrest some of the adults when they land in Australia.
Australian Federal Police Commissioner Krissy Barrett said they could face Commonwealth charges, including terrorism offences such as entering or remaining in declared areas, as well as crimes against humanity.
Associate Professor Rebecca Ananian-Welsh said the women could be subject to extended curfews, tracking devices and an internet ban under a range of control orders
‘Some individuals will be arrested and charged,’ Barrett said.
‘Some will face continued investigations when they arrive in Australia, and children who return in the cohort will be asked to undergo community integration programs, therapeutic support and countering violent extremism programs.’
However, when asked by the Daily Mail if those programs would be mandatory, the AFP refused to comment.
University of Queensland law professor Rebecca Ananian-Welsh told Daily Mail the women could face some of the toughest anti-terror control orders available under Australian law once they arrive – including round-the-clock monitoring, curfews and electronic tracking devices.
‘Pretty much anything except imprisonment, if it is proved that it will be reasonably necessary to protect the community from terrorism,’ she said.
‘It could be extended curfews, checking in with police, not being allowed to use the internet or phones, having to engage in education and other kinds of programs, not being allowed to contact certain people or go to certain places, or wearing a tracking device.
‘If you breach a control order, it’s an offence and that is punishable by five years in prison.’
The orders, which last up to 12 months, can be extended on an unlimited basis if it can be proven they are necessary to ensure community safety. They can only be placed on individuals aged 14 and above.
Many of the s-called ‘ISIS brides’ have spoken about being tricked into living in Syria, with some experts suggesting recruiters paint a utopian view of life with the terrorist group
If the women are not placed under formal control orders, Dr Ananian-Welsh said they could still face intense surveillance by authorities as officials work to protect the community.
‘There could be any range of restrictions that are being placed on these people, and it could be a control order, it could just be that they are heavily surveilled,’ she said. ‘There is a really broad and flexible suite of options available for dealing with these people.’
Shadow Minister for Home Affairs and Immigration Jonno Duniam urged the Albanese government to intervene at the last possible moment to prevent the women from landing on Australian shores.
‘This government have one last chance before these people board planes back to Australia to revoke their travel documents under national security grounds, to apply temporary exclusion orders,’ Duniam said.
‘How is it the government can stand idly by while third parties like (Immigration Minister) Tony Burke’s good friend Dr Jamal Rifi and non-government organisations can go and organise for the repatriation of these people who have gone to support the ISIS terrorist group to come back to Australia?’
Rifi, a doctor and Order of Australia recipient, obtained passports for the ISIS brides and their children.
‘One way or the other, yes – the camp is going to close, and those kids, where are they going to go?’ he said.
Janai Safar
The former nursing student from Sydney is due to land at Sydney Airport on Thursday evening with her nine-year-old son Uthman in tow.
However, the taste of freedom won’t last long for Safar, who is expected to be arrested for questioning upon landing, Daily Mail understands.
Safar, 32, joined Islamic State in 2015 with her female cousin after the pair travelled to Lebanon on a family holiday. They later married two of the terror group’s fighters in Syria.
Safar’s cousin is understood to have married Islamic State commander Tarek Khayat, who was allegedly involved in a plot to bomb an international flight from Australia.
The terrorist was arrested in 2017 and sentenced to death for his role in Islamic State operations.
In 2019, Safar lashed out at the Australian government and said she would never return, claiming she did not want her son raised in the country’s culture.
Janai Safar is expected to be arrested by police when she lands in Sydney on Thursday
She has links to an IS commander who was involved in a plot to bomb a flight from Australia
‘It was my decision to come here, to go away from where women are naked on the street. I don’t want my son to be raised around that,’ Safar told The Australian.
‘I didn’t train or kill anyone. I just sat at home, and they will put me in jail, they will take my child off me. Why? I’m a Muslim.’
Kawsar Abbas
Kawsar Abbas, 54, is expected to return to Melbourne with her two adult daughters and eight grandchildren.
She is the wife of Mohammed Ahmad, who funnelled money to Islamic State through a fake humanitarian charity that raised funds in Australia.
Kawsar travelled to Turkey with her children in March 2014 to join Ahmad, who was in the country to run his ‘Global Humanitarian Aid’ charity.
Kawsar maintains the family became trapped in Syria after crossing the border for her son Omar’s wedding, only to realise he had sworn allegiance to the terror group.
However, those are not the only ties Kawsar has to Islamic State.
Kawsar Abbas will return to Melbourne with her two adult daughters and eight grandchildren
Her husband Mohammed Ahmad (pictured) funneled cash to Islamic State through a fake humanitarian charity that raised funds in Australia
Her brother Roger Abbas was one of the first Australians to be killed fighting in Syria for the al-Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra. Her sons Ahmed and Omar were killed in Syria in 2016.
Two Yazidi women told ABC’s Foreign Correspondent in 2023 they had been held as slaves – one for a few days when she was just 11 – inside the Abbas’ family home in Syria.
The other Yazidi woman claimed she was held at the house for a year and repeatedly raped by Ahmad. He has denied the accusations.
Ahmad is believed to be held in an Iraq jail with other alleged ISIS fighters.
Zahra Ahmad
Kawsar’s eldest daughter, Zahra Ahmad, is believed to be landing at Melbourne Airport on Thursday night with her three sons in tow.
Zahra, 33, is the second wife of Islamic State recruiter Muhammad Zahab.
Her husband – who was a maths teacher in Sydney – recruited at least a dozen Australians to join him in occupied Syria, and quickly rose to a leadership role in the terror group. He died in an air strike in 2018.
Zahra Ahmad and her three sons will return to Australia after she married an IS fighter
Her family claims she married the terrorist once the family had became stuck in Syria in 2014, the women having no choice but to follow after some male relatives joined IS. However those claims have been contested.
‘I didn’t make this bed,’ Zahra told SBS in 2024. ‘We are now forced to suffer for the decisions that other people – other male influencers – have made on our behalf, and now they’re all gone and we are left to suffer with our kids.’
Zahra, who travelled to Syria with her eldest son Mohammad when he was just two-years-old, has previously expressed concerns over whether her sons will be taken away from her.
‘They are innocent. They haven’t done anything wrong,’ she said. ‘I don’t believe they should be punished for something they don’t even have anything to do with.’
Her sons are aged 14, 12 and seven.
Zeinab Ahmed
Zeinab Ahmed, the second eldest daughter of Mohammed and Kawsar Abbas, is expected to land in Melbourne with her five young daughters.
Her husband Islamic State fighter, Dawood Elmir, was killed on the battlefield in 2016 after they travelled to the conflict zone shortly after getting married in late 2014.
Zeinab and her five children are expected to land in Melbourne on Thursday evening
Her IS fighter husband, Dawood Elmir, was an associate of teenage suicide bomber Jake Billard
Elmir, who abandoned his nursing degree to fight in Syria, was an associate of teenage suicide bomber Jake Billard who blew himself up in a van in Iraq in 2015, killing at least 17 people.
Zeinab’s six-year-old daughter, who was born in the Al Roj camp, previously told reporters she hoped to meet Bluey and Bingo and go to ‘toy school’ when the family lands in Australia.
‘Please bring me home and I’ll buy an Avenger Kinder (Surprise). I want to go to a city in Australia, Sydney and Melbourne to visit my friend,’ she said when Zeibab asked her what she wanted to say to the Australian government.
