Members of Australian families at Roj Camp in eastern Syria, housing people with alleged ties to Islamic State militants, prepare to leave for Damascus as part of a second repatriation effort by Syrian authorities, Friday, April 24, 2026. Baderkhan Ahmad/AP
MELBOURNE, Australia — A number of Australian women accused of links to Islamic State militants will be arrested and face criminal investigations if they return from Syria, police said Wednesday.
Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke said the government was alerted Wednesday that four women and nine children had booked flights from Damascus to Australia. He did not say when they were expected to arrive.
Australian Federal Police have been probing Australians who traveled to the Islamic State group’s former caliphate in Syria since 2015, Police Commissioner Krissy Barrett said. Investigations have covered potential terrorism offenses and crimes against humanity, including slave trading.
“Some individuals will be arrested and charged. Some will face continued investigations when they arrive in Australia,” Barrett told reporters. She said the children will undergo programs to counter violent extremism.
Burke said the government was required to provide travel documents but has repeatedly insisted it is not assisting repatriation. “The individuals concerned traveled … in support of one of the most horrific terrorist organizations we’ve seen in recent history or in our lifetimes,” he said. “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.”
The women were held in Roj Camp near Syria’s border with Iraq. They left the camp last week, but Syrian authorities 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,” he said.
A previous attempt in February to return 34 women and children from the same camp was turned back by Syrian authorities. On that occasion, Australia issued a temporary exclusion order banning one woman from returning. The orders, created under 2019 laws to stop high-risk defeated Islamic State fighters returning, can prevent a citizen’s return for up to two years. Such orders cannot be made against children younger than 14, and Australia has ruled out separating children from their mothers. Burke said the February exclusion order remains in place.
Under Australian law, traveling to the former IS stronghold of Raqqa without a legitimate reason from 2014 to 2017 is an offense punishable by up to 10 years in prison.
Former Islamic State fighters, their wives and children from multiple countries were held in a network of camps and detention centers in northeast Syria after the group lost territory in 2019. Though territorially defeated, IS still conducts attacks in Syria and Iraq. The larger al-Hol camp has been closed, and thousands suspected of IS links were transferred to Iraq by U.S. forces to face trial.
Those moves followed fighting in January when government forces seized much of the territory once held by the Syrian Democratic Forces; amid the chaos many detainees fled al-Hol and some prisoners escaped from a detention center.
Australian governments have repatriated women and children from Syrian detention camps on two occasions previously. Other Australians have returned without government assistance.