FILE – Unidentified ladies stroll between tents in a piece of the camp housing Australian members of the family of suspected Islamic State militants within the Roj Camp in jap Syria, Feb. 18, 2026.
Baderkhan Ahmad/AP
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Baderkhan Ahmad/AP
MELBOURNE, Australia — An Australian mom of 4 was held in custody after she appeared in a courtroom on Thursday charged with touring to Syria and becoming a member of the Islamic State group.
Rayann El Houli, 34, was arrested at her Melbourne house eight months after she returned to Australia through Lebanon along with her youngsters and one other lady, police and her lawyer mentioned.
The arrest got here two days after seven ladies and 12 youngsters linked to IS returned to Australia from a Syrian refugee camp towards the desires of the Australian authorities.
Three weeks in the past, 4 ladies and 9 youngsters in comparable circumstances returned from the identical Roj camp for displaced individuals, which is situated close to the realm the place the frontiers of Syria, Turkey and Iraq converge.
Three of the 4 ladies have been charged on arrival with slavery and terrorism offenses and stay in custody.
All the ladies who returned from Syria this month remained underneath police investigation. One other lady, who accompanied El Houli to Australia from Lebanon, additionally was underneath investigation, Australia Federal Police Deputy Commissioner Hilda Sirec mentioned.
A time frame passing with out costs does point out investigations have ceased, Sirec famous.
El Houli wore a black niqab when she appeared within the Melbourne Magistrates’ Courtroom flanked by two jail officers. She was charged with getting into and remaining in a declared battle zone. She additionally has been charged with becoming a member of a terrorist group, IS. Every cost carries a possible most sentence of 10 years in jail.
Her bail utility can be heard on Monday. Her lawyer Peter Morrissey informed Justice of the Peace Lisa Hannan that it was a precedence to return El Houli, who suffers from PTSD, to her youngsters.
“The children are doing well in school, in (sports) programs, doing everything as best they can,” Morrissey mentioned.
“They, too, have come from the camps and that’s the reason for the haste,” he added.
Police allege El Houli traveled to Syria between 2013 and 2014 to hitch IS. She was captured along with her household by Kurdish forces in March 2019 after IS fighters have been defeated and was positioned in al-Hol camp for displaced individuals.
She returned to Australia on Sept. 26, police allege.
Janai Safar, 32, of Sydney was charged with comparable offenses when she arrived in Australia along with her 9-year-old son on Could 7. She should spend no less than two months in a Sydney jail after a Justice of the Peace refused her utility to be launched on bail.
Police allege she adopted her IS-fighter associate to Syria in 2015 and had a baby there. The associate reportedly died in 2017. Australia made it unlawful for its residents to journey to the previous Syrian IS stronghold of Raqqa with no reputable motive from 2014 to 2017.
Kawsar Ahmed, also referred to as Kawsar Abbas, and her daughter Zeinab Ahmed, 31, have been charged in a Melbourne courtroom on Could 8 in relation to allegations that their household purchased a feminine Yazidi slave for $10,000 in Syria, police mentioned.
The daughter is scheduled to use for bail subsequent week and the mom has a bail listening to scheduled for June 16.
