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IS-linked group set to return to Australia, minister says / Photo: Delil souleiman - AFP/File
IS-linked group set to return to Australia, minister says
A group of seven women and 12 children linked to Islamic State fighters are bound for Australia after years in Syria, the Australian interior minister said on Tuesday.
The so-called "IS brides" are Australian nationals and left the Roj camp, controlled by Syrian Kurdish forces, last week.
Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke said they would not receive any assistance from the Australian government.
"Any members of this cohort who have committed crimes can expect to face the full force of the law," he said.
"These are people who have made the horrific choice to join a dangerous terrorist organisation and to place their children in an unspeakable situation."
Some of the group will arrive in Melbourne while the rest will travel to Sydney, national broadcaster ABC said.
This month, 13 more IS-linked Australians -- four women and their nine children -- flew home from Syria.
Two of the women, a mother and a daughter, were arrested on arrival in Melbourne.
Police accused them of having kept a female slave after travelling to Syria in 2014 to support the Islamic State group.
They had been detained by Kurdish forces in 2019.
A third woman was also arrested on arrival in Sydney and charged with entering a restricted area and joining a "terrorist organisation".
Hundreds of women from Western nations were lured to the Middle East as IS gained prominence in the early 2010s, in many cases following husbands who had signed up as jihadist fighters.
(D.Sanchez--TAG)
