MELBOURNE, Australia – Australian federal law enforcement officials have announced terrorism-related charges against a 34-year-old Melbourne woman, accusing her of traveling to Syria more than a decade ago to join the Islamic State (IS) extremist group, marking the latest development in a string of prosecutions linked to repatriated Australian citizens linked to the militant organization.
Deputy Commissioner Hilda Sirec of the Australian Federal Police (AFP) confirmed that officers took the woman into custody at her suburban Melbourne residence this week, eight months after she reentered Australian territory via Lebanon alongside a second woman who remains under active investigation. Sirec emphasized in a press briefing that the passage of time without formal charges does not signal the end of counter-terrorism probes, underscoring the agency’s long-term commitment to holding alleged extremists accountable.
This arrest comes just 48 hours after a group of 19 Australians – seven women and 12 children – with ties to IS arrived back in Australia from a Syrian displacement camp, a repatriation that directly contradicted the position of the Australian federal government, which has long opposed the return of citizens who joined IS. Three weeks prior, another group of 13 people – four women and nine children – were repatriated from the Roj displacement camp, located in northeast Syria near the tri-border junction of Syria, Turkey, and Iraq. Three of those four women were immediately taken into custody on charges including slavery and terrorism offenses and remain behind bars as their cases proceed. All seven women who arrived in the most recent repatriation are currently the subject of ongoing police investigations.
Court documents outline that the woman arrested this week is scheduled to make her first appearance at the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court on Thursday, facing two separate serious charges: entering and staying in a declared conflict zone without authorization, and becoming a member of the proscribed terrorist organization Islamic State. Each charge carries a statutory maximum penalty of 10 years’ imprisonment if she is convicted.
Investigators allege the woman traveled to Syria between 2013 and 2014 specifically to join IS. After the territorial defeat of IS’s self-declared caliphate in 2019, she was captured by Kurdish-led forces in March of that year and detained in the al-Hol displacement camp for people linked to IS, before being repatriated to Australia on September 26 last year.
This case is the latest in a series of similar prosecutions in Australia, following high-profile charges brought against other repatriated citizens. In May, 32-year-old Janai Safar of Sydney was charged with identical terrorism offenses when she returned to Australia with her 9-year-old son. A magistrate denied Safar’s bail application, ordering her to remain in custody for at least two months as her case moves forward. Prosecutors allege Safar traveled to Syria in 2015 to join her partner, an IS fighter who died in 2017, and gave birth to their child while living in IS-held territory.
Separately, two Melbourne women – 59-year-old Kawsar Ahmed (also known as Kawsar Abbas) and her 31-year-old daughter Zeinab Ahmed – were charged in early May over allegations that their family purchased a female Yazidi slave for $10,000 while living in IS-controlled Syria. Zeinab Ahmed is scheduled to submit a bail application next week, while her mother’s bail hearing is set for June 16.
Australian federal law has criminalized travel to the former IS stronghold of Raqqa, Syria without a compelling legitimate reason since 2014, a regulation that remained in place through 2017 and forms the legal basis for many of the current charges against repatriated citizens.