The 34-year-old woman, who returned from Syria in September 2025, was arrested at a home in Broadmeadows in Melbourne’s north today and has been charged with entering and remaining in a declared conflict zone and one count of being a member of a terrorist organisation.
It is alleged by police that the woman travelled to Syria with others, including a man, between 2013 and 2014 to join ISIS, before she was detained by Kurdish forces in 2019 and held in al-Hawl Internally Displaced Persons camp with family members.
The charged woman returned to Australia from Lebanon with another woman on September 26, 2025.
The man she is believed to have travelled to Syria may be incarcerated in a Middle East prison, police said.
She will face the Melbourne Magistrates Court today.
Both charges carry a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison.
Police made the arrest after conducting search warrants at two homes in Broadmeadows and Fitzroy North.
Officers seized a suspected stolen car, electronic devices, documents and photographs.
AFP Deputy Commissioner National Security Investigations Hilda Sirec said police are also investigating the 36-year-old woman who arrived from Lebanon in Australia.
Four so-called ISIS brides have been charged with domestic offences over the past month.
Sirec said the long period between the charged woman’s arrival in Australia and her arrest is “not an indicator that investigations have ceased”.
“I will confirm investigations are continuing in all recent adult female returnees who spent time in internally displaced person camps in Syria,” she said.
“All the women who have returned recently are under investigation.”
Two cohorts of women and their children have arrived in Sydney and Melbourne in May after leaving Al-Roj refugee camp in Syria.
It is unclear at this stage which cohort the woman who has been charged today arrived with.
The second group included four women and their children, who arrived at Sydney Airport just after 5.30pm on Tuesday, having left the Al-Roj camp late last week and travelled via Damascus.
Another group of two women and their children arrived at Melbourne Airport about 4.30pm.
Counter-terrorism police searched the groups’ belongings and downloaded information from their devices “for investigative purposes” but no arrests were made at the airport.
“No one arriving within this cohort has been charged, however, investigations into the activities of Australians who travelled to Syria, including those who have since returned, are ongoing,” the NSW and Victoria Joint Counter Terrorism Teams said in a statement at the time.
“Police and the JCTTs will continue to engage with relevant stakeholders to ensure community safety is upheld.
“The safety of our communities remains a priority for all agencies.”
Operation Kurrajong is the name given to the joint counter-terrorism investigation, which handles the return or potential return of Australians who travelled to the Middle East during the ISIS caliphate.
Dozens of ISIS fighters and their brides have returned to Australia since 2013.
Australia repatriated two other groups of women and children who were living in the Al Roj camp in 2019 and 2022.
Government plans have been in place since 2014 to manage the returning citizens.
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