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Australian citizen in Syria with alleged Isis ties banned from returning home

This is the first known use of a temporary exclusion order introduced in 2019 to prevent high-risk citizens from returning to Australia

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Australian family members of suspected Isis militants walk toward a van bound for the airport during the first repatriation operation of the year at Roj Camp in eastern Syria on Monday. Photo: AP
Associated Press
Canberra banned an Australian citizen with alleged ties to the militant Islamic State (Isis) group from returning home from a detention camp in Syria, the latest development in the case of fraught repatriation of families of Isis fighters.
The woman was planning to join another 33 Australians – 10 women and 23 children – and fly on Monday from Damascus, Syria, to Australia, Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke said on Wednesday.

But the group was turned back by Syrian authorities to the Roj detention camp, due to unspecified procedural problems.

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The Australian government had acted on news that the group planned to leave Syria, Burke said.

He said the woman, whom he did not identify, had been issued with a temporary exclusion order on Monday and her lawyers had been provided with the paperwork on Wednesday.

Syrian Democratic Forces members secure the area as vans carrying Australian family members of suspected Islamic State militants head to the airport on Monday. Photo: AP
Syrian Democratic Forces members secure the area as vans carrying Australian family members of suspected Islamic State militants head to the airport on Monday. Photo: AP

She was an immigrant who left Australia for Syria sometime between 2013 and 2015, Burke said, declining to elaborate on whether she had children – though he generally blamed the parents for the predicaments of their offspring stranded in Syria.

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