Sameer Dakhil Alazeez, once kidnapped by ISIS, now proudly calls Australia home. Courtesy of Sameer Dakhil Alazeez

Sameer Dakhil Alazeez was just nine years old when he was kidnapped by the ISIS terrorist group—ripped away from his family and farming community in Iraq.

It was not his first encounter with terrorism. Two years earlier, Alazeez survived a car bombing that left his legs so badly burned he was unable to walk for a year.

In 2014, he remembers being a child who understood little of politics or religion. But as ISIS swept into his hometown, he was forced to flee—hiding in olive groves and surviving on animal feed—until he was eventually captured.

What followed was seven months of captivity and abuse, during which ISIS operatives tried to force him to convert to Islam at gunpoint.

He was eventually rescued by the Iraqi army. All he could think of in that moment was seeing his mother again.

It is a harrowing account Alazeez would rather not relive.

He reveals that at one point his mother had to plead with his father not to kill his family as ISIS was closing in—a “Sophie’s Choice” type scenario where his father had to consider whether to let his family suffer at the hands of the terror group.

Sameer Dakhil Alazeez is rescued from ISIS in 2015 by Iraqi soldiers. Courtesy of Sameer Dakhil Alazeez

‘We Are Importing Terrorists,’ Says Alazeez

Now a proud Australian citizen, Alazeez is warning his fellow countrymen against complacency with the return of so-called ISIS “brides” and children.
A group of four women and nine children arrived in Australia on May 7 with three of them arrested immediately.
Between them, they would be charged with six crimes including keeping and using a slave, and engaging in slave trading, according to Australian Federal Police Assistant Commissioner Stephen Nutt.

Detectives allege the older woman, Kawsar Ahmad, 53, travelled to Syria with her husband and children in 2014.

A group of supporters surround an ISIS-linked family as they arrive at Melbourne international Airport, in Melbourne, Australia on May 7, 2026. A group of 13 women and children are set to return to Australia after years spent in a Syrian refugee camp following the fall of Islamic State. AAP Image/Joel Carrett

They allege she was complicit in buying a female slave for US$10,000 ($13,800), and knowingly kept the woman in her home.

“My biggest concern is simple,” Alazeez told The Epoch Times. “We are importing terrorists. Being a woman doesn’t make you innocent. These women were ISIS. They took part in the genocide.
“They took part in the enslavement of Yazidi women and children just like the men did. I know people who were raped with the help of women like these. Some of these women killed Yazidi slaves out of jealousy—jealous that their men were raping us, so they murdered the girls.”

The Persecuted Yazidis

Yazidis are a small ethno-religious group mainly from northern Iraq, with a global population of under 1 million and smaller communities in places like Australia, where around 7,000 live.

Their faith blends elements of ancient Mesopotamian religion and Zoroastrian-influenced tradition.

Citing media reports, Alazeez says approximately 3,000 Yazidis are still missing due to ISIS.
In 2014, around 10,000 Yazidis were killed or kidnapped, according to the not-for-profit organisation Save the Children Australia.
“Scale that to Australia’s population and that’s the equivalent of 270,000 people wiped out or taken in a matter of days,” Alazeez said.

Yazidi women light candles during a ceremony marking Charshama Sor, or Red Wednesday, the Yazidi New Year, at Lalish temple in Shaikhan near Dohuk in northern Iraq on April 14, 2026. Northern Iraq’s Kurdistan Region is home to the Yazidi religious minority, which was attacked and displaced by ISIS militants in 2014, when hundreds of people were taken hostage, including women who were allegedly used as sex slaves. Gailan Haji/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images

“Today, [with] these ISIS women coming back to Australia, there is a high chance some of them know exactly where our [Yazidis] people are. They lived in those households, they saw the slaves come and go, they know names, they know places.”

He described ISIS captivity as “Hell,” saying girls as young as eight were raped, beaten and forced into slavery.

“I have cousins with children from rape, I have cousins who tried to kill themselves in captivity because death felt better than what they were enduring,” he said.

Alazeez warned the women could exploit Australia’s tolerance to ideology, and could help nurture or spread extremist ideology locally.

Minister Maintains No Power to Keep ISIS-Linked Cohort Out

Labor Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke has maintained the government has little power to stop the women and children from returning, and that it did not assist them with their return.
“The government is not repatriating and will not repatriate,” he told media.
“The government is not assisting and will not assist these individuals. They made an appalling, disgraceful decision.”

Minister for Home Affairs, Cyber, and Immigration Tony Burke addresses the chamber at Parliament House in Canberra, Australia on Jan. 20, 2026. Hilary Wardhaugh/Getty Images

Further, Burke says he has no knowledge of when the women obtained passports, saying it was a bureaucratic procedure that had run its course and that the department was following the letter of the law.
“Applications get made, they take time going through the bureaucracy, they take time going through a whole range of different checks, including security checks. It gets to the point where the bureaucracy decide that by law they have to issue, and they make decisions under law for any application for an Australian passport.”

The ISIS Threat in Australia

Since the rise of the ISIS terrorist group in 2014, Australia has faced a series of attacks, plots and radicalisation.
In September 2014, Australia raised its national terrorism threat level to “probable” after several Australians travelled to Syria and Iraq to join the group, including high school students.

Then-ASIO Director-General David Irvine warned of an “elevated level of concern” as the extremist group expanded overseas.

Australia’s flag is seen next to floral tributes outside Bondi Pavilion in Sydney, Australia on Dec. 16, 2025. David Gray/AFP via Getty Images

Weeks later, 18-year-old Numan Haider stabbed two counter-terrorism officers in Melbourne in what authorities described as an ISIS-inspired attack. The teenager was shot dead by police.

That same year, the Lindt Cafe siege in Sydney left two hostages dead after the gunman pledged allegiance to ISIS.
In 2016, Haider’s associate, Sevdet Besim, was sentenced to 10 years’ jail for planning an ANZAC Day terror attack where he intended to murder a police officer and then use the police weapon to inflict further carnage.

Investigators said Besim was motivated by a fatwa—a form of command—issued in 2014 by ISIS.

In 2015, New South Wales Police employee Curtis Cheng was shot dead outside the Parramatta police headquarters by 15-year-old Farhad Jabar, who authorities said had been influenced by ISIS propaganda.

ASIO later revealed terrorism investigations had doubled to 400 by 2015, with around 120 Australians fighting in Iraq and Syria and about 160 others actively supporting the conflict from within Australia.

More recently, investigators have alleged links between Australia’s pro-ISIS networks and the 2025 Bondi terror attack where 15 people were killed.

Authorities alleged gunman Naveed Akram had previously associated with convicted ISIS recruiter Youssef Uweinat and members of an ISIS-linked Sydney terror cell investigated by the ASIO in 2019.
In August 2024, ASIO again raised Australia’s terror threat level to “probable,” with Director-General Mike Burgess warning that “more Australians are being radicalised, and radicalised more quickly.”
This month, four Melbourne men were charged by the Australian Federal Police for sharing ISIS propaganda online.