The Labor federal government is assisting a top-secret operation to bring more than a dozen ISIS brides and their children to Australia by Christmas.
The group of Australian citizens, who include women, children and young men, will be evacuated from a camp in Syria and returned to New South Wales and Victoria, The Australian reported.
Government officials will work with non-profit organisations and family members to assist the group with obtaining travel documents and approvals from authorities in Kurdish-controlled northeastern Syria, where 34 people remain in the Al Roj camp, including 20 children as young as five.
The Albanese government will then provide support and help attempt to reintegrate the group back into Australian society, but will not be involved in the ground operation.
“The Australian government is aware of media reporting about a cohort including Australian citizens seeking to return from Syria,” a spokesperson for immigration minister Tony Burke said.
“The Australian government is not providing assistance to this cohort. Our ability to provide consular assistance to Australians in Syria is extremely limited due to the dangerous security situation.
“Our intelligence and security agencies are constantly monitoring any threats to our national security.”
The group will be the third to be returned to Australia since the fall of the ISIS Caliphate in 2019, with the children of ISIS terrorist Khaled Sharrouf evacuated out of the Al Hol camp that year, and four women and their 13 children brought back in 2022.
One of the 2022 cohort, Mariam Raad, was spared a conviction in June last year after being charged for entering Syria with her ISIS fighter husband.
ISIS is still active in Syria and Iraq, with thousands of fighters still waging war in the region.
Header image: ISIS bride Australian citizens in the Al Hol camp in Syria in 2020 (supplied).
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