Last Islamic State-linked Australian woman from Syrian camp to return despite previous ban

An Australian woman linked to the Islamic State group has been given authorisation to return to Australia, after the government was advised it could no longer enforce a criminal exclusion order.

She is the last of a group of Australian women and children who sought to return home from a refugee camp in northern Syria, years after traveling to the Middle East with husbands and fathers who were fighting with the Islamic State terror group.

The home affairs minister, Tony Burke, said the woman would face an unprecedented level of security monitoring once she arrives in the country, including constant monitoring and requirements to report to authorities regularly, and the permit to travel was the final stage of the temporary exclusion order process governing the woman’s movements.

The woman will be monitored at home and whenever she is in the community. The conditions of the permit require her to give 24 hours notice before using a communications device, such as a mobile phone or a public pay home. But her return in coming days will spark renewed political criticism of Labor’s handling of the group and the months-long drama of their attempts to return home, as members of the group have already faced criminal charges after making it back to Australia, including over alleged enslavement, joining a prescribed terror group and crimes against humanity.