In a high-profile counter-terrorism development that unfolded across two Australian states on Thursday, three women with documented connections to the Islamic State terror group have been taken into federal custody and formally charged just hours after touching down on Australian soil following years of detention in a Syrian displacement camp.
The first two suspects, 53-year-old Kawsar Abbas and her 31-year-old daughter Zeinab Ahmed, were apprehended immediately upon arrival at Melbourne’s international airport. They are scheduled to make their first court appearance at the Melbourne Magistrates Court this Friday, barely 24 hours after their arrest. According to official charging documents released by the Australian Federal Police (AFP), Abbas faces four separate counts of crimes against humanity. Investigators allege she relocated to Syria in 2014 alongside her husband and children, and directly participated in the $10,000 purchase of a female Yazidi slave whom she held captive in her household for years. Ahmed faces two matching charges of crimes against humanity, with police confirming she also accompanied her family to Syria in 2014 and knowingly assisted in holding the enslaved woman. Each of these charges carries a maximum possible sentence of 25 years behind bars if the pair are convicted.
Across the country in New South Wales, a third defendant, 32-year-old Janai Safar, was arrested and charged shortly after landing in Sydney. She arrived in the country accompanied by her young son, and is also set to appear in a local Sydney court on Friday. The AFP alleges Safar travelled to Syria in 2015 to join her husband, who had previously left Australia to pledge allegiance to IS. She faces two charges: entering and remaining in a formally declared conflict zone, and being a member of a designated terrorist organisation. Both offences carry a maximum penalty of 10 years imprisonment each.
Notably, another of Abbas’ adult children, Zahra Ahmed, also arrived in Melbourne on the same flight but was not taken into custody or charged by authorities.
The three women are part of a larger group of 13 Australian citizens that touched down in Australia on Thursday, nine of whom are minor children. This group forms a fraction of a broader cohort of 34 Australian women and children who have been held at the al-Roj camp in northern Syria since IS lost control of the territory it occupied in 2019. The group first attempted to complete their repatriation to Australia in February of this year, but were forced to return to al-Roj camp due to unresolved administrative technical issues, after the former Australian government repeatedly refused to approve their official repatriation. Earlier this year, one member of the 34-person cohort was issued a temporary exclusion order by the federal government, barring that individual from returning to Australia for a period of up to two years.