What we know about the remaining families returning from Syria

A bus carrying Australian women and children left the al-Roj camp last week. (ABC News: Baderkhan Ahmad) Link copiedShareShare articleThe final group of Australians living a in notorious Syrian camp for the families of killed and captured Islamic State militants are expected to arrive in Australia as early as Tuesday afternoon. Last week the ABC exclusively revealed the seven women and 14 children left the al-Roj camp in Kurdish controlled north-eastern Syria, before a more than 750-kilometre drive to Damascus. They had been hidden away by Syrian authorities over the weekend and it is believed the group flew to Doha on Monday. From there, they would be taking flights to Sydney and Melbourne, travelling with Australian passports they have held since their failed attempt to leave al-Roj in February. The Syrian government did not reply to the ABC's requests for comment about the group and their supporters have tried to keep a lid on how much information is being made public after seeing how their plight has been publicised in the past. It is the beginning of the end to a long and complicated saga for these families. They had spent years in squalid internment camps after the fall of the so-called Islamic State caliphate, with some of the children born behind the razor wire. Despite that, many of the youngest members of the group speak with strong Australian accents. It will not necessarily be a smooth return to Australia for the families, after another group of 11 flew back earlier this month. Three of the women were arrested the moment they set foot on Australian soil. Mother and daughter Kawsar Abbas and Zeinab Ahmad were charged with slavery offences and Janai Safar was charged with joining a terrorist organisation and travelling to a declared terrorist area. Janai Safar was among three IS-linked Australians arrested by police upon their arrival back into the country last month. (ABC News) A fourth woman, Zahra Ahmad, was not arrested. The remaining women were warned by the prime minister they would face the full force of the law upon their return if they were believed to have committed any crimes. "AFP operations preparing for returns from Syria have been in place since 2015," Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke said in a statement on Monday. In February the federal government issued one of the women with a temporary exclusion order, which restricts entry to Australia for up to two years on national security grounds. Australian women who lived in the Islamic State terror group's so-called caliphate speak from detention camps in Syria for the first time following the collapse of the Assad regime, begging the federal government to bring them home before they become trapped in a new war that will make it even harder to get them and their children out. Since then there has been debate as to whether that means she will be left behind while some her children travel to Australia with the rest of the group, or if her lawyers will find another avenue to allow her to make the journey. In interviews with the ABC over a number of years some of the women have pleaded their innocence and claimed they were tricked or coerced into travelling to Syria at the height of Islamic State's deadly rampage across the region. In February the ABC revealed the names of the Australian women in al-Roj. These are the details of who remained after the return of four members of the group earlier this month. It is not confirmed which woman is subject to the TEO. Nesrine Zahab was revealed as one of the members of the group after an interview with the ABC's Four Corners in 2019, while she was still living in the Al Hol camp south of al-Roj. She was in her early 20s when she arrived in Syria and claimed she did not know she had entered the country until she saw an Islamic State flag. She said she had been trying to deliver aid to refugees on the Turkish side of the border. Nesrine Zahab is one of the women who tried to leave the camp. (ABC News: Baderkhan Ahmad) "I found that I was in Syria. Did I have a heart attack? Of course I had a heart attack. "Did I cry and scream and chuck a fit like a little girl? I chucked the biggest tantrum. She later married Ahmed Merhi, an Australian-born IS militant who was later captured and sentenced to death. She said she believed marrying offered her the best chance of survival in the so-called caliphate. Sumaya Zahab, now in her early 30s, is Nesrine's cousin and the sister of Muhammad Zahab. He was a maths teacher from Sydney who joined IS and became something of a recruiter for the organisation. Muhammad was killed in an air strike in 2018, and had convinced of his several family members to travel to Syria. Aminah Zahab is Muhammad and Sumaya Zahab's mother, and Nesrine Zahab's aunt. When she spoke to the ABC in 2019, she described herself and husband Hicham as "clueless parents" who had travelled to Syria to follow their children. "We didn't know how to do much things in

What we know about the remaining families returning from Syria

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