Three Australian Women Charged with IS Links, Slavery After Syria Return

Three Australian women with ties to the Islamic State group face formal charges after returning from Syria.

Kawsar Abbas, 53, and her daughter Zeinab Ahmed, 31, will appear in Melbourne Magistrates Court on Friday. Police arrested them at Melbourne airport less than 24 hours earlier. Abbas faces four counts of crimes against humanity. Authorities allege she traveled to Syria in 2014 and kept a female slave in her home. Ahmed faces two similar counts.

In Sydney, Janai Safar, 32, also goes to court Friday. She faces charges of entering and remaining in a declared conflict zone and joining IS. Officers arrested and charged her Thursday after she landed with her son.

The Australian Federal Police allege Abbas went to Syria in 2014 with her husband and children. They say she took part in buying a female slave for $10,000 and knowingly kept the woman in the home. Police make the same claim against Ahmed, who also traveled to Syria in 2014 with her family. Those charges carry a maximum of 25 years in prison.

Zahra Ahmed, another adult child of Abbas, arrived in Melbourne Thursday but police did not detain her.

For Safar, police say she went to Syria in 2015 to join her husband, who had left Australia earlier to join IS. She also faces a charge of membership in a terrorist organization. Both her offenses carry a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison.

The three women arrested Thursday belong to a group of 13 people who arrived in Australia that day. Nine of them are children. They form part of a larger group of 34 Australian women and children who lived at Syria's al-Roj camp since 2019.

The group left the camp in February to return to Australia. They ended up back at the camp for technical reasons, with the Australian government refusing to repatriate them.