Australian Federal Police officers on Thursday arrested three women with deep ties to the Islamic State right after disembarking from a plane as they tried to return to the country — ending the police’s roughly decade-long wait for the opportunity to finally take them into custody.
Collectively, the arrested women — 31 year-old Zeinab Ahmed, 32 year-old Janai Safar, and 53 year-old Kawsar Abbas — stand accused of a litany of crimes against humanity related to terrorism, enslavement, and slave trading that go all the way back to 2015. Each charge conveys a per-charge maximum prison sentence between ten years for the terrorism-related offenses and 25 years for the slavery-related ones, according to Australian Federal Police (AFP) Assistant Commissioner Counter Terrorism Stephen Nutt.
The three women are part of a broader group largely known as the ‘ISIS brides,” made up of four Australian women and nine of their children and grandchildren that moved to Syria so they could marry Islamic State fighters before the collapse of their so-called ISIS “caliphate” in 2019. European nations experienced a similar phenominon last decade, with dozens of so-called ISIS brides and Jihadi brides travelling to join the caliphate.
Abbas and Ahmed were reportedly arrested in Melbourne, while Safar was detained in Sydney. They are expected to face court once they are formally charged, which, according to Nutt, could happen “as early as tomorrow.”
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) reports that a group of men dressed in black waited for the women at Melbourne’s international Airport. The men, some of whom reportedly wore masks to conceal their faces, allegedly sought to escort the women out of the airport.
The group was previously held at the Al Roj camp in north-eastern Syria for several years. The camp was under the control of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) until further conflicts between the SDF and the new Syrian government following the fall of the regime of Bashar Assad prompted the group to relinquish control of the facility alongside several others. The group reportedly left the camp several weeks ago.
Since February, the new Syrian government has been attempting to expel the group of Australian citizens from its territory despite attempts from the Australian government to prevent their return — causing a new political conundrum for the leftist administration of Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and a fierce rejection from opponents of the ruling Labor Party who have called their trust on government’s handling of the situation into question.
Prior to their return, Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke had repeatedly insisted that no help from the Australian government would be provided for the group of women beyond providing them with passports. It is reportedly believed that 21 Australians still remain at the Al Roj camp.