Four so-called ISIS brides and their children arrived in Australia on Thursday night after years spent detained in the al-Roj camp in northern Syria and weeks of political turmoil surrounding their eventual return.

Three of the women – Kawsar Abbas and her daughters, Zahra and Zeinab – arrived amid chaotic scenes into Melbourne, with the family matriarch and daughter Zeinab arrested and charged with crimes against humanity.

Zahra was not charged with any offences and was seen leaving amid a throng of supporters at Melbourne Airport, alongside eight children.

The one woman who returned to Sydney, former nursing student Janai Safar, was arrested and charged with offences pertaining to joining ISIS.

This is The Daily Telegraph’s lowdown on the returned so-called ISIS brides, their husbands and history.

Janai Safar, 32, Sydney

Former nursing student Janai Safar was the sole ISIS bride to return on Thursday to Sydney, flying in from Damascus via Doha with her nine-year-old son.

She was arrested at the airport and charged with allegedly entering a declared conflict zone and joining a terrorist organisation.

Her son is now with relatives.

According to police, Safar travelled to Syria in 2015 to join her husband, an IS militant who was killed in 2017. Little is known about his identity.

In 2019, she said in a media interview she “did not regret coming … or living under the Islamic State”, and did not want to return to Australia, claiming she feared prosecution, a lengthy prison sentence, and losing custody of her child.

She said she had chosen to travel to Syria because she rejected Western culture and wanted to raise her son in a more conservative environment.

Safar appeared before Sydney’s Downing Centre Local Court on Friday, where her application for bail was refused.

Kawsar Abbas, 53, Melbourne

The matriarch of the Abbas family, 53-year old Abbas travelled to Syria in 2014 with her husband Mohammed. She returned to Melbourne on Thursday with her daughters, Zahra and Zeinab Ahmed, on-board a Qatar Airways flight.

She was charged with four offences pertaining to her time in Syria: a crime against humanity, namely enslavement, as well as possessing a slave, using a slave and engaging in slave trading. Each offence carries a maximum penalty of 25 years’ imprisonment.

The family claim they became stuck in Syria in 2014 after travelling from Turkey – where her husband worked for a charity – to attend the wedding of their son, Omar, who had joined ISIS.

Kawsar appeared before Melbourne Magistrates Court on Friday.

Mohammed Ahmad, Melbourne

Kawsar’s husband, Mohammed, left Melbourne in 2012 to work in Turkey for a charity, which agencies believed funnelled money to ISIS, something he denies.

He has said he was never a fighter or supporter of ISIS, and has denied allegations that he was involved in the enslavement of Yazidi women.

More than ten members of the Abbas family are alleged to have travelled to Syria during the rise of ISIS.

Ahmad remains behind bars in northeast Syria, but in a male prison, not in the al-Roj camp where the mothers and children are being kept.

Zahra Ahmed, 33, Melbourne

The eldest daughter of Kawsar and Mohammed Ahmad, 33-year-old Zahra Ahmed became the second wife of notorious ISIS recruiter Muhammad Zahab.

In 2024, she said in a media interview she had no choice but to follow male members of the family who had joined the caliphate.

“I didn’t make this bed,” she said.

“We are now forced to suffer for the decisions that other people — other male influencers — have made on our behalf, and now they’re all gone, and we are left to suffer with our kids.”

Unlike her mother and younger sister, she has not been charged with any offences.

Muhammad Zahab, Sydney

One of Australia’s most notorious ISIS recruiters, Muhammad Zahab, Zahra Ahmad’s husband, was a former maths teacher who became a “senior member” of the ISIS structure and the centre of a recruitment network in Sydney.

He travelled to Syria to join the terror group in 2014.

Zahab’s parents, sister and brothers all travelled to Syria with or after him. His youngest brother, Yusuf, was taken to Syria by the family as a 12-year-old, and is understood to be trapped in an Iraqi prison after being transferred from the northern Syrian camps.

Zahab was killed in an air strike in 2018. His first wife, Mariam Raad, was repatriated in 2022 and later pleaded guilty to entering a region controlled by a terror group.

Zeinab Ahmed, 31, Melbourne

Zahra Ahmad’s younger sister, Zeinab married Dawod Elmir, another ISIS fighter, who travelled to Syria in 2014.

On Thursday night, she was arrested along with her mother at Melbourne Airport before being charged with two crimes against humanity offences: enslavement and using a slave, which both carry a maximum penalty of 25 years’ imprisonment.

Zeinab’s six-year-old daughter was born in the al-Roj camp and was pictured being carried out of Melbourne airport by a relative on Thursday night.

Zeinab appeared before Melbourne Magistrates Court on Friday.

Dawod Elmir, early 20s, Melbourne

Dawod Elmir, Zeinab’s deceased husband, abandoned his nursing degree to join ISIS in Syria in late 2014.

Elmir was an associate of teenage suicide bomber Jake Bilardi, who prayed at the same Melbourne Islamic centre, and family members after the ISIS fighter’s death labelled him a “martyr” who had a “lion heart”.