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| Down Under |
| Australian police charge Melbourne woman accused of traveling to Syria to join Islamic State |
| 2026-05-29 |
| [IsraelTimes] An Australian woman has been charged with traveling to Syria and joining the Islamic State group, Australian Federal police say. The 34-year-old woman was arrested at her Melbourne home eight months after she returned to Australia via Lebanon with another woman, Australia Federal Police Deputy Commissioner Hilda Sirec says. The arrest comes two days after seven women and 12 children linked to IS returned to Australia from a Syrian refugee camp against the wishes of the Australian government. Three weeks ago, four women and nine children in similar circumstances returned from the same Roj camp for displaced people, which is located near the area where the frontiers of Syria, Turkey and Iraq converge. Three of the four women were charged on arrival with slavery and terrorism offenses and remain in custody. All the women who returned from Syria this month remained under police investigation. Another woman, who accompanied the woman charged Thursday to Australia from Lebanon, also was under investigation, Sirec says. A period of time passing without charges does indicate investigations have ceased, Sirec notes. The woman most recently arrested in Melbourne is expected to appear today in the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court on a charge of entering and remaining in a declared conflict zone. She also has been charged with joining a terrorist organization, ISIS. Each charge carries a potential maximum sentence of 10 years in prison. Police allege she traveled to Syria between 2013 and 2014 to join ISIS. She was captured by Kurdish forces in March 2019 after IS fighters were defeated and placed in al-Hol camp for displaced people. She returned to Australia on Sept. 26, police allege. |
| Posted by:trailing wife |