Islamic State terrorist militia
IS returnees charged in Australia
Updated May 8, 2026 – 1:01 p.mReading time: 2 minutes
They are said to have left Australia and stayed in Syria for years with a terrorist group. After their return, the “IS brides” are on trial, also for keeping slaves.
Three Australian women with links to the Islamic State (IS) terrorist militia have been charged after returning to Australia. The allegations range from keeping slaves to membership in a terrorist organization, Australian media reported. The years-long investigation reportedly began after the women traveled to the Middle East with their partners who wanted to fight for ISIS.
The women and their children had already landed in Australia on Thursday. They appeared in court in Melbourne and Sydney on Friday.
The women most recently lived in the Roj refugee camp in northern Syria. According to Australian media, there are around 20 other women and children with connections to IS who could also try to return to Australia in the coming weeks.
Charges of crimes against humanity have been brought against two of the returned women, a mother and her daughter. There has never been anything comparable in Australia, which makes the case historically significant, wrote the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper. There is great interest in the women called “IS brides” in the Australian media. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese reportedly said he had “no sympathy” for the women and welcomed the trials.
The three women are now 31, 32 and 53 years old. When they arrived, there were sometimes chaotic scenes at the airport, Australian media reported. A fourth woman, who reportedly also arrived on Thursday, was not initially arrested.
Two of the defendants, the mother and her daughter, are accused of having kept a Yazidi woman as a slave. A representative of the Yazidi community in Australia, Sami Sheebo, spoke in the “Sydney Morning Herald” of “painful memories and emotional scars”, especially among women “who had to endure captivity and slavery at the hands of ISIS”.
In 2014, IS attacked the Yazidi settlement area in northwest Iraq. The aim was to destroy the Yazidi religion by forcibly converting its members, re-educating them religiously, abducting them, enslaving them, raping women and girls and murdering men who did not want to convert.
