The AFP have confirmed three women have now been arrested after the so-called ISIS brides and their families touched down in Sydney and Melbourne earlier tonight.

ISIS bride taken straight to police station after touching down in Sydney

ISIS bride taken straight to police station after touching down in Sydney

First vision of the so-called ISIS bride Janai Safar in Australia as she arrives at Mascot…

ISIS bride Janai Safar, 32, has been taken into custody at Sydney airport and driven through a media scrum on her way to the Mascot police station.

The former nursing student, who once told the media she never wanted to return to Australia, is expected to be charged with offences related to entering or remaining in a declared terrorist area.

The offences can carry a ten-year jail sentence. She has a nine-year-old son born after her relationship with an ISIS fighter.

The Australian Federal Police have confirmed three women have now been arrested by Joint Counter Terrorism Teams (JCTT) under Operation Kurrajong.

The other two women, aged 53 and 31, were arrested on arrival into Melbourne International Airport today.

Janai Safar arriving at Mascot police station after touching down at Sydney Airport. Picture: 9News
In a 2019 interview, Janai Safar told journalists that she did not regret travelling to the region.

“It was my decision to come here to go away from where women are naked on the street. I don’t want my son to be raised around that,” Ms Safar said in 2019.

“I didn’t train or kill anyone. I just sat at home, and they will put me in jail, they will take my child off me. Why? I’m a Muslim.

“I saw everything (the coalition forces did), and no one gets punished for that. They say I’m not supposed to be in Syria, but they (the Australians) come to Syria with planes.”

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Other Australian ISIS brides and their families landed in Melbourne tonight, including grandmother Kawsar Abbas, 53.

One of her two adult daughter is understood to be the other woman arrested by the AFP.

A massive group of supporters have gathered at Melbourne airport to escort the family of three mothers and eight children through the throng of reporters.

Men claim they will be providing “security” and escorting the women and their children. Picture: Luis Enrique Ascui
Dressed in black, some of the men were wearing masks and said they would be providing “security” and escorting the women and their children.

Two of the women are expected to be arrested after they clear customs. The Australian Federal Police are expected to hold a media conference later tonight.

The arrest of the women is expected to be filmed by the AFP and released to the media later tonight, which is standard practice.

The ISIS-linked Australians walking through Melbourne Airport on Thursday after landing in Australia filmed by the ABC who travelled on board the same flight. Picture: ABC News
The Melbourne group were filmed shortly after disembarking the flight by ABC reporter Bridget Rollason, who travelled on board the same flight from Doha.

Speaking on ABC TV, Education Minister Jason Clare said the women would face the full force of the law on arrival in Australia.

Some ISIS brides arrived into Melbourne airport aboard a Qatar flight at 5.30pm Thursday. Picture: Jason Edwards
“I’ve got faith in the Australian Federal Police. They know what they’re doing. This is not their first rodeo,’’ he said.

“When the Liberal Party let 40 foreign fighters into the country, they took the steps that they needed to take to keep Australians safe.

“And I trust, in the words of the AFP Commissioner yesterday, when she said that some of these women will be arrested when they arrive and others will be subject to further investigation.”

Janai Safar. Picture: Facebook (2012)
Mr Clare also confirmed that 9 children who are returning will be provided access to special programs to re-educate the children against extremist views.

“Well, kids don’t get to choose who their parents are, and these children have seen sorts of things that no child should ever be exposed to, and it’s going to take time for these children to reintegrate into Australian society,’’ he said.

“These are the sort of programs that the Australian Federal Police run, and I would expect that the Federal Police would want to run countering violent extremism programs with all of the children that return.”

Speaking on Sky News, opposition home affairs spokesman Jonno Duniam said the Albanese Government never should have let the women and children back into Australia.

“They were born into or raised amongst fundamentalist Islamist extremists, so something’s going to have rubbed off on these kids, and therefore they are a risk to our society,” he said.

‘I’m very worried about what we are bringing back into this country. They’re here. They’re our problem as a country, we’re going to have to pay for them and we’re going to have to be worried.”

‘Soldier of Allah’: ISIS bride’s gushing posts

The mother of two Australian ISIS brides arriving back in Melbourne tonight previously described her son as a “soldier of Allah” in social media posts.

Kawsar Abbas and her two adult daughters Zahra and Zeinab are set to touch down in Victoria this afternoon with a large group of children.

Some of these children were born in the Middle East after the women married Islamic State fighters and have spent years in Syrian refugee camps.

AFP Commissioner Krissy Barrett said police would be waiting to arrest and charge some of the members when they arrived in Australia on the Qatar Airways flight from Doha.

“Some individuals will be arrested and charged. Some will face continued investigations when they arrive in Australia,” she said today.

Abbas’s husband, Mohammed Ahmad, is accused of keeping two women as Yazidi slaves. He denied those allegations from behind bars in a Syrian prison in 2023.

In 2014, the same year the family travelled to the region for their son Omar’s wedding, Abbas posted the following message on Facebook.

“I got a beautiful message this morning from someone I don’t know, a revert who told me Omar is a true soldier of Allah,’’ she said.

“Yes dear sis, a soldier who won’t walk away from the cry of the orphans. May Allah protect you both and unite us soon.”

Her husband Mohammed Ahmad is locked up in a Syrian prison. He is accused of keeping two women as slaves. Credit: ABC News

A Yazidi woman named Sarab (above) claimed she was kept as a slave by Mohammed. Credit: ABC

Their father Mohammad Ahmad has always insisted he was doing charity work in the region before his two sons Omar and Ahmad joined him overseas. They both died in the conflict.

However Mohammad Ahmad, who remains in a Syrian jail, has been accused of keeping a Yazidi woman named Sarab as a slave. Sarab says she was sent to the family when she was 13.

She knew the Australian man as Abu Omar, a name that the grandmother also uses for her husband on social media.

“It was very unpleasant. I was their slave and they could do whatever they wanted to me,’’ Sarab told the ABC.

“My life was controlled by them. It felt like my existence did not matter.”

After initially telling the ABC in 2019 that his son had a slave but she was treated as “a daughter” Mohammed Ahmad now says he never even saw his son’s Yazidi slave.

“That’s the accusation, it’s not true,” the man told the ABC in 2023.

Kawsar Abbas described her son Omar, who is now dead, as a “true soldier of Allah”. Picture: Facebook

Zhara Ahmad is on a flight home to Victoria touching down tonight. Credit: SBS (Dateline)

She married notorious Islamic State recruiter Muhammad Zahab, who died in an air strike in 2018. Credit: ABC News
Meet the ISIS brides

One of the “ISIS brides” returning to Australia, Zahra Ahmad, is the widow of a notorious Islamic State recruiter who previously pleaded with Australians not to “judge” the women she says were trapped in the region as a result of “male influences”.

Two years ago, was interviewed in an SBS television documentary, insisting some of the women didn’t have a choice after male members of the family swore allegiance to Islamic State. She said she understood why people would be nervous about her return.

“I understand that, and I think I would have the same concern if I was back home,’’ she said.

“But what I would like to say is, ‘Don’t be so quick to judge’. Try and look at it from our perspective. We are also mothers. You know, we’re human beings.

“I didn’t make this bed. For me, that doesn’t apply.

“We are now forced to suffer for the decisions that other people – other male influences, you know – made on our behalf.

“Now they’re all gone, and we’re left to suffer with our kids.”

She later married the notorious Islamic State recruiter Muhammad Zahab, a former Australian maths teacher who died in an air strike in 2018.

The documentary featured video of her teaching her 12-year-old son, who has never attended school, basic maths.

Two years ago, she feared her male children being taken away from her.

“If they take them away from me, I might never see them again,’’ she said.

“I can’t have that happen to my kids.

“They are innocent. They haven’t done anything wrong. I don’t believe they should be punished for something they don’t even have anything to do with.”

Her son said he also feared being taken from the family because he was approaching his teenage years.

“I’m a big boy,” her 12-year-old son said. “I don’t want to get separated from my mum.”

She said her kids had been packed and ready to return home for years.

“The kids every day had their shoes ready on the door, had their clothes ready to get dressed to go, had their bags ready,’’ she said.

“The kids that have gone home, they’ve gone back to school, reintegrated back into society nicely.

“I just want my child to have the same opportunity to be healed. Going to school, going to the park, going to the zoo, these beautiful things that they should be allowed to do.”

Zeinab Ahmad: Picture: ABC News/Haybar Othman
Who are the ISIS brides returning to Australia

Kawsar Abbas

The 54-year-old is from Melbourne. She is the mother of Zahra and Zeinab.

She is the wife of Mohammed Ahmad, who ran a charity to support the people of Syria that the AFP believed was funnelling money to Islamic State.

The family first travelled to Syria in 2014 for a family wedding, they say this was before realising that their son, Omar, had pledged allegiance to Islamic State.

Zahra Ahmad

Zahra Ahmad married notorious Islamic State recruiter Muhammad Zahab, who died in an air strike in 2018.

She is the eldest daughter of Mohammed and Kawsar Abbas and is believed to have been Zahab’s second wife after he also married another Australian woman.

She had three sons.

Zeinab Ahmad

Zeinab, 31, has pleaded with Australia to repatriate the families.

“It’s not a place for a child to be, and every day.. it’s just getting harder,” she said.

“There’s a street (in the camp) — it’s called Australia Street. We live closely, we have a strong connection because we all have the same motive. We all want to get home.”

Janai Safar

A former health science student, Janai left Australia in 2015 to travel to Syria. She married an Islamic State fighter and had a child a year later.

She was quoted by the Sydney Morning Herald in 2017 outlining her concerns that her children would be taken away from her.

“I didn’t train or kill anyone,” she said.

“I just sat at home, and they will put me in jail, they will take my child off me. Why? I’m a Muslim.”