Australia using ISIS returnees issue to please far-left

Shaimaa Hefzy

Australian Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, does his best to strike a balance between his government’s commitments toward all Australian citizens, on one hand, and the need to curry favors with the far-left.

This was clear when Australia was debating whether it should allow Australian nationals who had joined the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (aka ISIS) to return home.

Morrison tries to hold the stick from the middle. His government said it would allow ISIS children, now in the custody of Syrian Democratic Forces, to return home. It did this to please Australia’s Muslims who make up around 2.5% of the population of Australia. These Muslims have recently been targeted by the far-left in this country.

On the other hand, the decision is fraught with warnings against allowing senior ISIS members to return to Australia, amid an argument by the far-left that allowing these fighters to return would increase the pace of Islamist violence within the Australian society.

Morrison announced that eight ISIS orphans had been taken out of a camp in Syria and were in the custody of Australian staff.

The Australian prime minister had announced earlier that his government would only help its citizens who contact one of its embassies or consulates.

He seems to have, however, changed his mind with regard to this group of minors whose fate has resonated widely in the media in Australia.

“Children should not be punished for the crimes of their parents,” Morrison said in a statement.

The group includes three children and two grandchildren of Sydney-born Khalid Shroof, who was killed in Syria.

Shroof, born to a Lebanese father, left for Syria in 2013 with his wife Tara Nettleton and their five children. He is believed to have been killed in 2017 with two of his sons in a US air strike in 2015.

Refugee camps in Kurdish areas house around 12,000 foreigners, 4,000 women and 8,000 children of foreign jihadist families living in heavily guarded sections. This number does not include Iraqis.

With a decision to repatriate the eight children, Australia follows the United States, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium, which have also repatriated a small number of children. However, some other Western governments, including the United Kingdom, have been reluctant to return citizens because of security concerns.

Morrison said his government would look into other similar cases in Syria.

Australian authorities estimate that up to 70 Australians are still in the camps. It says it would not risk the lives of any Australians to “get people out of these conflict zones.”

Greg Barton, an expert on security and Islamic politics at Deakin University, said the risks involved in these repatriations could be managed when sufficient resources were directed to rehabilitation and the number of returnees was relatively low.

“These children of foreign fighters deal with shock, post-traumatic stress disorder and psychological damage,” he said. “Some older children may be extremists and it is necessary to separate them from social networks and reintegrate them into society.”