Peter Dutton demands Anthony Albanese explain why ISIS brides who ‘hate our country’ are being brought back to Australia

Opposition leader Peter Dutton has demanded answers as to why four wives and their 13 children are returning to Australia from an Islamic State refugee camp in Syria.

The 17 evacuees will stay in Iraq before flying into Sydney after Anthony Albanese’s government reversed a ban on their repatriation – a move Mr Dutton derided as ‘not in the country’s best interests’ on Friday.

The Australian-born women left the country with radicalised members of the Islamic State terrorist cell and their children, but the demise of the extremist group’s power base left them widowed and stranded in refugee camps. 

In 2019, Australia secretly rescued and repatriated eight Australian orphans from the camps in the Middle East.

However, the previous government refused to bring any further women and children home for security reasons. 

Mr Dutton made his position regarding the plan clear and claimed the policy reversal will put the country at risk. 

Seventeen women and children are now headed for Sydney in a secretive repatriation mission

Leader of the Opposition Peter Dutton (above) has blasted the move to bring the ISIS brides and their children home, claiming it’s not in Australia’s national interests

He told Sky News he hoped the women and children’s transition back to Australian life was ‘successful’. 

‘But I do worry about people coming back from the theatre of war, particularly when they’ve been in the circumstance where they’ve been mixing with people who hate our country and hate our way of life,’ Mr Dutton said.

‘The Prime Minister needs to stand up today to explain to the Australian public what measures they’ve got in place. On my collective experience and what I know, I don’t think it’s in our country’s best interest.’

Mr Dutton told the broadcaster he felt for children taken to the frontlines, but said the parents had made ‘a terrible decision’.

The women and children were removed from the al-Roj camp near the Iraqi border in an operation involving Australian officials and the Syrian Democratic Forces

‘That’s a terrible circumstance for those children and for those women, but that’s the decision that the parents have made,’ Mr Dutton said.

‘In our positions you’ve got to make decisions in our country’s best interests.

‘The Prime Minister needs to stand up today and to explain to the Australian people why it’s in our country’s best interests and why we’re not compromising security here in our own country.’

ASIO officials will evacuate the women and children from their camp in Syria’s north-eastern Rojava region, where they’ve been held since March 2019.

The women and children were previously removed from the al-Roj camp near the Iraqi border in an operation involving Australian officials and the Syrian Democratic Forces.

The identities of the women haven’t been released. 

It is rumoured members of some 40 more families of IS fighters will be allowed back into Australia.

The evacuations come after Cabinet’s national security ­committee finalised plans to repatriate more than a dozen families who underwent ‘risk assessments’ following a secret ASIO mission to Syria.

Aussie intelligence agencies believe that leaving Australians in squalid camps may present more of a threat to national security than bringing them back, as their plight could be used to recruit more Australian Muslims to join terror organisations.

It is understood all of those brought home will be subject to intensive monitoring by security agencies and some will face terror charges as it was illegal for many at the time to travel to Syria and Iraq. 

The return of four women and their children from a refugee camp in Syria is the first since Anthony Albanese’s government reversed a ban on repatriating the family members of ISIS soldiers 

‘The Australian government’s overriding priority is the protection of Australians and Australia’s national security advice,’ a spokesman for Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil said on the subject earlier this month.

‘Given the sensitive nature of the matters involved, it would not be appropriate to comment further.’

The Shadow Minister for Home Affairs Karen Andrews expressed that she was astonished details of the operation even entered the public domain. 

She called on the government to ‘come clean’ on how the publicisation of the operation transpired.

‘Sensitive missions risking the lives of Australians – including those that are in overseas camps – need to be treated carefully, and with due consideration of the information being made public.’

‘The Home Affairs Minister needs to come clean with how this level of information – before a mission or missions finish – is currently in the public domain.’

‘If it is a leak, the Prime Minister needs to call an investigation.’