A group of Australian families with ties to former Islamic State fighters who have spent years stranded in a Syrian refugee camp have begun another attempt to travel home to Australia.
Four women, along with nine of their children and grandchildren, left the camp on Friday, the ABC can reveal. The ABC has been told the women are Zeinab Ahmed, Kawsar Abbas, Zahra Ahmed, and Janai Safar.
Syrian interior forces came to Al Roj to pick them up directly and take them to Damascus.
“We can confirm that today that the coordination was perfect,” Al Roj camp director Hakmiyeh Ibrahim told the ABC.
“It was done between us and the Syrian government, to be able to fly back these families to their country.”
She said there were currently no plans for the remaining Australians to leave Al Roj.
“Right now, we are in contact with a number of countries – we hope that in the near future, more releases will be done.”
In February, the ABC revealed a group of 11 women and 23 children had tried to leave the notorious Al Roj camp in Kurdish-controlled north-eastern Syria.
They were forced to turn around soon after beginning the more than 10-hour journey by road to the Syrian capital, Damascus.
At the time, it had been described as an administrative issue, with the families not properly coordinating their travel with Syrian government forces.
Their supporters, including prominent Sydney doctor Jamal Rifi, said a tip-off to the media had thwarted their chances of quietly leaving the camp to begin their journey home.
It had been expected that the families would bide their time before making another attempt to leave Al Roj.
The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported on Thursday that 17 members of the group, from four families, were preparing to leave the squalid camp.
It is understood the families will try to begin their journey back to Australia from Damascus.
Latest attempt comes months after political furore
The case sparked a political furore in Australia in February, with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese saying he had no sympathy for their plight and insisting the Australian government was not helping them leave Al Roj.
Despite that insistence, Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke said Australia was under a legal obligation to provide the group with passports, given they are citizens.
Members of the group had single-use travel documents in hand ahead of their failed February journey, with Dr Rifi saying he had brought them to Syria.
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Australian officials had visited Al Roj in 2022, beginning the process of identity checks. It is likely that this was what allowed passports to be issued by the Australian government.
Soon after the case was thrust back into the spotlight this year, one of the women was issued with a Temporary Exclusion Order (TEO) barring her from travelling to Australia for a period of two years on national security grounds.
The federal opposition proposed new criminal offences for anyone trying to help the women and children, or anyone else with links to the failed Islamic State.
Escape comes amid power shifts in Syria
In February, the ABC revealed the identities of the women in the camp after seeing a handwritten list of their names.
Many of the women had previously spoken to the ABC, including as far back as 2019 when Four Corners gained access to north-eastern Syria.
Revealed: Full list of ‘ISIS brides’ trying to leave Syria
Some of the women are believed to have accompanied their husbands to Syria at the height of Islamic State’s deadly rampage through Iraq and Syria, while others likely travelled to the area with family and married IS fighters after their arrival.
A number of the women claim they were lured to Syria under false pretences. Some of their children have been born in refugee camps such as Al Roj.
Countries, including Australia, have been urged by the Kurdish authorities who control north-eastern Syria to repatriate their citizens.
Some legal experts have also warned that the group, particularly the children, face a grave risk of further radicalisation if left to languish in the camps.
The families last attempted to leave the Al-Roj camp in Syria in February. (Supplied)
Since the beginning of 2026, there has been a significant shift in the power dynamics in north-eastern Syria.
Government forces loyal to rebel leader-turned-president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, are sweeping through territory which Kurdish forces, known as the SDF, had controlled for the best part of a decade.
One of those areas was surrounding another notorious camp, Al Hol, where families and associates of IS fighters had been held for years.
Some of the Australian women and children had previously lived there.
The Syrian government had accused the SDF of abandoning their posts at major prisons housing IS fighters, leading to breakouts.