At least two ISIS brides are expected to be arrested when they return to Australia, as it emerges the United States government is helping facilitate the group's return home. Four women and their nine children left the al-Roj camp on Friday to travel to the capital, Damascus, with plans to board a flight back to Australia.
The group has already secured plane tickets to return, with the Iran war ceasefire creating a brief window for their removal. 'I can reveal two of the ISIS brides are expected to be arrested when they land in Australia,' journalist Sharri Markson revealed on Tuesday.
The ISIS brides are expected to be in Australia by next week, and Markson revealed further arrests are not being ruled out. 'They have been issued air-tickets and passports to return to Australia, although the Albanese government has not confirmed return time or day yet,' she said.
Markson's revelation comes as it emerged the United States State Department stepped in behind the scenes to help secure the departure of the ISIS brides and their children. It is understood the State Department used high-level diplomatic pressure on Syria to help facilitate their return, The Australian reports.
The final decision to authorise their transfer was made by Syria's Foreign Minister, Asaad al-Shaibani. Josh Roose, an expert in terrorism and religious extremism, told Sunrise there was a practical reason for the US helping the ISIS brides.
'This is very practical problem for the United States. On the one hand, they fund the camps via Kurdish forces in the region, and they want they want to basically save resources. These camps are expensive to run. And in the context of the wider conflict, they're keen to pull back and expend those resources elsewhere,' he said.
He said there were also growing security concerns about allowing the camps to continue operating. 'Also, they're on record as having stated that the al-Roj camp and others like it are security problems. You've got a concentration of Islamic State former fighters, extended families, and really what what that entails is a space for potential further radicalisation and consolidation of that group.'
Mr Roose said it was likely that the Australian government knew about the US position. 'The Americans were on record as having stated their their wish for Australia to repatriate these these families for some for some months, it's likely that the Australian government were aware of that that position.'
Anyone who had committed a crime would face the consequences when they re-entered Australia, immigration minister Tony Burke said. 'People in this cohort need to know that if they have committed a crime and if they return to Australia they will be met with the full force of the law,' he said in a statement.
A group of about 30 women and children has been trying to return home to Australia from Syria for years after travelling to the Middle East with men who sought to fight for Islamic State before the caliphate was toppled in 2019. The larger cohort recently attempted to leave the al-Roj camp for Damascus in order to travel to Australia, but was turned around by local authorities and forced to return.
Opposition home affairs spokesman Jonno Duniam said a 'policy of self-managed returns' was an abdication of the government's responsibility to make hard decisions in the national interest. 'If they have not done security checks over the last four years yet issued them passports, it indicates tacit approval of terrorist sympathisers to come back,' he said.
