ISIS-linked woman under exclusion order not returning to Australia with other families

The majority of the final group of Australians living in a notorious Syrian camp for the families of killed and captured Islamic State militants are expected to arrive in Australia as soon as this afternoon.

Last week, the ABC exclusively revealed 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.

Syrian authorities had hidden them away over the weekend, and it is believed the group flew to Doha on Monday.

From there, they are believed to have boarded flights to Sydney and Melbourne, travelling with Australian passports they have held since their failed attempt to leave al-Roj in February.

Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke confirmed all but two members of the group were travelling back to Australia, and said the federal government "has not and will not provide any assistance to this group".

"These are people who have made the horrific choice to join a dangerous terrorist organisation and to place their children in an unspeakable situation," he said in a statement issued this morning.

One woman, who was issued with a temporary exclusion order (TEO) in February, is not returning to Australia, and neither is her child, the ABC confirmed.

The ABC understands the woman subject to the TEO is Hodan Abby, from Western Sydney, who left home when she was still a teenager.

While her child is not covered by the TEO, which restricts entry to Australia for up to two years on national security grounds, they have elected to stay with their mother, the ABC understands.

The Syrian government did not reply to the ABC's requests for comment about the group, and its supporters have tried to keep a lid on how much information is made public after seeing how their plight has been publicised in the past.

It is the beginning of the end of 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.

A fourth woman, Zahra Ahmad, was not arrested.

The prime minister warned the remaining women that 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," Mr Burke said in a statement on Monday.

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 is expected to return to Australia.

Nesrine Zahab

Nesrine Zahab was identified as a member of the group after an interview with 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.

"Who walks into a war zone?" she said.

"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.

"Did it work? No. I'm still here."

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

Sumaya Zahab, now in her early 30s, is Nesrine's cousin and Muhammad Zahab's sister.

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 several of his family members to travel to Syria.

Aminah Zahab

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 life. As we raised our children, and we just let the children rule our lives," she said.

"I feel very angry. I feel very devastated. I feel sore, pain."

Kirsty Rosse-Emile

Kirsty Rosse-Emile spoke to the ABC in early 2025 from the al-Roj camp, and said that explaining how she arrived in Syria "might make problems for me".

Now in her early 30s, she was captured by Kurdish forces after the fall of IS in 2019.

Her sister revealed to the ABC earlier this year that she was married when she was 14 and was "groomed" and "manipulated" into travelling to Syria.

In 2020, The Guardian reported that Ms Rosse-Emile's husband, Moroccan-born Nabil Kadmiry, had his Australian citizenship stripped by the federal government.

Kawsar Kanj and Hyam Raad

The other two women returning to Australia are Kawsar Kanj and Hyam Raad.

Little to no public information is available about them.

It is believed Kawsar may have married Hyam's son, Majed, and had three children as a result.

Majed Raad was tried and acquitted of involvement in a large-scale terror plot in Australia before travelling to Syria.

Hodan Abby

In 2021, the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age revealed that Hodan Abby had agreed to be subjected to monitoring and restrictions by Australian police and intelligence agencies if it meant she could come home.

The newspapers reported that Ms Abby, originally from a Somalian family in Western Sydney, had left home back in 2015 when she was still a teenager and wanted to travel to Syria to become a jihadi bride.

She gave birth to a daughter in Syria, who, it was reported, suffered head injuries and needed medical treatment outside of al-Roj.

The ABC understands Ms Abby, who is subject to a TEO, and her child are not travelling home to Australia.