MELBOURNE, Australia — The final Australian woman remaining in a Syrian camp that housed families of Islamic State group fighters has been granted permission to return home, but she will face a rigorous set of conditions once she does, Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke announced Thursday.
The 29-year-old woman, who once lived in Sydney, and her nine-year-old daughter had been set to travel back to Australia in February alongside a group of other Australian women and children from the Roj camp. However, a temporary exclusion order blocked her from departing at that time.
Australia introduced these exclusion orders in 2019 as a tool to keep defeated IS fighters from coming back from the Middle East for periods of up to two years. This woman is the only known person to have been targeted by such an order.
Burke explained Thursday that after the woman’s legal team applied for a permit allowing her return, his government no longer had a legal basis to keep her out of the country.
Upon her return, police and national security agencies will impose a strict set of requirements. She must keep authorities informed of where she lives, works, studies, and intends to travel. She will also be required to give 24 hours advance notice before using any form of communication technology.
“Even if you want to use a public phone, it’s 24 hours notice. Any social media, 24 hours notice on everything has to be given so that there will be a very high level of scrutiny and surveillance and we have gone absolutely to the legal limit that we’re able to,” Burke told the Australian Broadcasting Corp.
Members of the opposition have pushed back against the government, arguing it should have changed the law to stop the woman from coming back at all.
Officials confirmed the exclusion order had been issued on national security grounds, though they declined to elaborate on the specific reasons behind that decision.
The woman’s attorney, Moustafa Kheir, had not responded to a request for comment as of Thursday.
Australian Federal Police have been looking into the conduct of Australians who traveled to the territory where IS declared its caliphate across parts of Iraq and Syria since 2015 — the same year this woman, then 18 years old, left Sydney for Syria.
Whether she will face arrest when she lands in Australia remains uncertain. Of four women who arrived in Australia on May 7 with nine children, three were taken into custody upon arrival and charged with terrorism and slavery-related offenses. Those three have been denied bail and remain behind bars.
