Spy agencies are on alert as a group of Australian women and children linked to Islamic State plan to return home from Syria after years in a detention camp.
Four women and their nine children left Syria’s al-Roj camp on Friday, travelling to Damascus where they plan to board a flight back to Australia, according to multiple media reports.
A source close to the families told the Sydney Morning Herald and the Age they had secured plane tickets to Australia.
But this was disputed by a government source, not authorised to speak publicly, who told AAP none of the 13 women or children had been flagged as having booked a flight home.
The government was not involved in the group’s repatriation but spy agencies were following the case closely, Defence Minister Richard Marles said.
“Obviously our intelligence agencies are on the job,” he told ABC Radio National on Monday.
“We’re not providing any assistance for these people to come back to Australia,” Mr Marles said.
Security agencies had been preparing for the group’s return, and anyone who had committed a crime would face the consequences when they re-renter Australia, Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke said.
“People in this cohort need to know that if they have committed a crime and if they return to Australia they will be met with the full force of the law,” he said in a statement.
A group of around 30 women and children has been trying to return home to Australia from Syria for years, after travelling to the Middle East with men who wanted to fight for Islamic State before the caliphate was toppled in 2019.
Advocates claim some of the women were coerced into leaving Australia.
One of the women has been barred from entering the country because of fears she could pose a security risk, and One Nation MP Barnaby Joyce said more should be excluded.
“These are women… who were a party to some of the most horrendous crimes in the history of the world,” he told Seven’s Sunrise program.
“If we’ve got a temporary exclusion on one, we should be doing everything to get a temporary exclusion on the lot,” Mr Joyce said.