The Government has approved the return of the last remaining Australian woman with links to Islamic State (IS) left in Syria.
Australian citizen Hodan Abby had previously been barred from returning under a temporary exclusion order issued by Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke, but has now been granted a return permit.
She is expected to return to Australia with her child and will be subject to strict monitoring when she arrives.
Here’s what you need to know.
Context
Australia listed ISIS (also known as IS or Daesh) a terrorist organisation in 2005.
The group occupied one-third of Syria from 2014 to 2017, forming a ‘Caliphate’ governed under a fundamentalist interpretation of Islamic law.
The Australian National Imams Council says ISIS “does not represent Islam or the Muslim world in any way”.
ISIS lost all of its territory by 2019, and many of its fighters and their families were placed in detention camps across Syria, Libya, and Iraq. This included dozens of Australian citizens.
Australians
In 2022, the Federal Government helped four Australian women and their 13 children return from a Syrian camp.
The following year, Save the Children Australia unsuccessfully took the Government to court in a bid to force the repatriation of the remaining women and children. The court ruled Australia had no legal obligation to assist because it did not control the circumstances of their detention.
In February this year, 11 women and 23 children attempted to leave Al Roj camp without government assistance but were turned back by Syrian authorities.
Then, in early May, a first group of four women and nine children returned to Australia without government assistance, arriving in Melbourne and Sydney.
Two women were arrested in Melbourne and charged with crimes against humanity allegedly committed in Syria, while another was arrested in Sydney and charged with entering a declared conflict zone and joining ISIS.
Later that month, a second group of six women and their children arrived in Sydney and Melbourne. No arrests were made, although investigations remain ongoing.
Latest
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The last remaining Australian woman with links to Islamic State (IS) who was left in Syria will now be allowed to return home after the Government granted her a permit to re-enter the country.
The permit was granted on Wednesday night after Burke previously placed the Australian citizen under a temporary exclusion order (TEO), which barred her return after authorities assessed she posed a significant national security risk.
She is expected to return to Australia with her child.
When she returns, she will be subject to strict monitoring, with authorities overseeing where she lives, works, studies and travels.
She must also give 24 hours’ notice before using any telecommunications device or accessing social media.
ASIO Director-General Mike Burgess said the agency was involved in approving the woman’s return and was satisfied the necessary security arrangements were in place.
TEOs
Temporary Exclusion Orders (TEOs) allow the Government to prevent citizens from returning to Australia for up to two years under counterterrorism laws, unless they apply for a return permit.
The orders are designed to delay the return of someone assessed as a terrorism risk, giving authorities time to put security measures in place to reduce any threat to the community.
If a person applies for a return permit, the maximum period they can be excluded from Australia is 12 months.
“We received the final advice yesterday that post-entry conditions, that’s all the surveillance conditions - there’s a whole series of conditions we can put in place there - but we received the final advice yesterday that we can no longer have an exclusion condition, any longer for her.”
– Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke on ABC Radio on Thursday morning.
Opposition
Opposition defence spokesperson Senator James Paterson accused the government of mishandling the case, saying it had failed to protect the Australian community.
Paterson told Sky News that Burke had given “a rather tortured explanation... about why this wasn’t his fault.”
“The bottom line is the Albanese Labor Government has issued a return permit to a member of ISIS, an affiliate of ISIS to return to our country, who was previously blocked from returning to our country.”
