Australia will not repatriate new IS-linked group from Syria

[ad_1] MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — The Australian authorities is not going to repatriate from Syria a group of 34 women and children with alleged ties to the militant Islamic State group, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese stated Tuesday.

The ladies and kids from 11 households have been imagined to fly from Syria to Australia, however Syrian authorities on Monday turned them again to Roj detention camp due to procedural issues, officers stated.

Solely two teams of Australians have been repatriated with authorities assist from Syrian camps for the reason that fall of the Islamic State group in 2019. Different Australians have additionally returned with out authorities help.

Albanese wouldn't touch upon a report that the most recent ladies and kids had Australian passports.

“We’re offering completely no help and we're not repatriating folks,” Albanese instructed Australian Broadcasting Corp. in Melbourne.

“We've got no sympathy, frankly, for individuals who traveled abroad in an effort to take part in what was an try to ascertain a caliphate to undermine, destroy, our lifestyle. And so, as my mom would say, ‘You make your mattress, you lie in it,’” Albanese added.

Becoming a member of the caliphate In his remarks, Albanese was referring to the IS militants’ seize of huge swaths of land greater than a decade in the past that stretched throughout a 3rd of Syria and Iraq, territory the place the extremists established their so-called caliphate.

On the top of its management, IS declared town of Raqqa its capital, with jihadis from international international locations touring to Syria to hitch the IS. Through the years, they'd households and raised youngsters there.

Opposition chief Angus Taylor demanded Albanese clarify whether or not his authorities had thought of banning the Australians from returning. So-called momentary exclusion orders allow a authorities minister to forestall high-risk residents positioned abroad from returning to Australia for as much as two years.

“These are people who selected to affiliate with a terrorist caliphate. This isn't aligned with the values we as Australians consider in — democracy, the rule of legislation, our primary freedoms together with freedom of faith,” Taylor instructed reporters.

“The door should be shut to individuals who don't consider in these issues,” Taylor added.

Requested about utilizing momentary exclusion orders on this case, Albanese didn't straight reply. “What we are going to do on nationwide safety points is we take care of it appropriately upon recommendation” of safety businesses, Albanese instructed reporters.

Albanese famous that the kid welfare-focused worldwide charity Save the Kids had failed to ascertain in Australia’s courts that the Australian authorities had a accountability to repatriate residents from Syrian camps.

After the federal courtroom dominated within the authorities’s favor in 2024, Save the Kids Australia chief govt Mat Tinkler argued the federal government had an ethical, if not authorized, obligation to repatriate households.

Albanese stated if the most recent group made their technique to Australia with out authorities assist, they could possibly be charged.

A fancy authorized concern Underneath Australian legislation, it was an offense punishable by as much as 10 years in jail to journey to Raqqa in Syria and elsewhere in the caliphate with no professional cause from 2014 to 2017.

“It’s unlucky that youngsters are impacted by this as nicely, however we're not offering any help. And if anybody does handle to search out their means again to Australia, then they’ll face the total drive of the legislation, if any legal guidelines have been damaged,” Albanese added.

The Islamic State group was defeated by a U.S.-led coalition in Iraq in 2017, and in Syria two years later, however IS sleeper cells nonetheless perform lethal assaults in each international locations. Through the battles in opposition to IS, hundreds of extremists and tens of hundreds of girls and kids linked to them have been taken to detention camps.

Supervisor Hakmiyeh Ibrahim of the Roj camp in northeastern Syria instructed The Related Press that kinfolk of the Australians stated the Australian authorities had ready the camp residents’ passports and journey paperwork and advised that their households accumulate these paperwork.

The last group of Australians to be repatriated from Syrian camps arrived in Sydney in October 2022.

They have been 4 moms, former companions of Islamic State supporters, and 13 youngsters.

Australian officers had assessed the group as probably the most weak amongst 60 Australian ladies and kids held in Roj camp, the federal government stated on the time.

Eight children of two slain Australian IS fighters have been repatriated from Syria in 2019 by the conservative authorities that preceded Albanese’s center-left Labor Social gathering administration.

The difficulty of IS supporters resurfaced in Australia after the killings of 15 folks at a Jewish festival at Bondi Beach on Dec. 14 — attackers allegedly impressed by IS.

Some international locations are repatriating their residents with alleged IS hyperlinks from Syria whereas others should not. Iraq has repatriated most of its residents, who accounted for the most important variety of detainees, after Syrians. The US, Germany, Britain, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium and Canada have all repatriated residents from Syrian camps.

Final yr, households repatriated from Roj camp included German, British and French nationals.

Individually, hundreds of accused IS militants who have been held in detention facilities in northeastern Syria have been transferred to Iraq by the U.S. army to face trial there.

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Related Press journalist Hogir Al Abdo in Qamishli, Syria, contributed to this report.

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