WEBVTT - What’s next for the Aussie ‘ISIS brides’ trapped in Syria 0:00:01.480 --> 0:00:03.200 My mother would have said, if you make your bed, 0:00:03.279 --> 0:00:03.880 you lie in it. 0:00:04.360 --> 0:00:07.840 They're known as the Isis Brides, eleven women and twenty 0:00:07.880 --> 0:00:11.360 three kids who for nearly a decade have languished in 0:00:11.400 --> 0:00:15.720 a dusty desert detention camp in northern Syria. Some of 0:00:15.760 --> 0:00:18.960 the children have known no other home, but the PM 0:00:19.000 --> 0:00:21.079 insists the group aren't welcome here. 0:00:21.200 --> 0:00:28.080 These are people who went overseas supporting Islamic state and 0:00:28.720 --> 0:00:34.080 went there to provide support for people who basically want 0:00:34.760 --> 0:00:35.440 a caliphate. 0:00:35.640 --> 0:00:37.760 This week they tried to make their way back home, 0:00:38.360 --> 0:00:40.760 but at the last minute they were turned around at 0:00:40.760 --> 0:00:43.360 a checkpoint and back where they started. 0:00:44.040 --> 0:00:47.519 They're all Australian citizens, and you know, it breaks my 0:00:47.600 --> 0:00:49.800 heart to think of all these kids, these kids as 0:00:49.840 --> 0:00:56.480 young as five, going through this hongo and trauma. 0:00:57.280 --> 0:01:01.520 I'm Nicole Johnston and you're listening to set a today. 0:01:01.720 --> 0:01:06.200 Green Senator David Shubridge and Professor Joshua landis founder of 0:01:06.200 --> 0:01:10.080 the Syria Comment blog on the threat of radicalization, the 0:01:10.160 --> 0:01:14.480 hope of rehabilitation, and what happens next is chaos takes 0:01:14.520 --> 0:01:26.880 over in Syria. It's Thursday, February nineteen. David, could you 0:01:26.920 --> 0:01:29.800 start off by reminding us who these families are that 0:01:29.880 --> 0:01:32.880 are trying to leave this detention camp in Syria and 0:01:32.920 --> 0:01:34.639 how did they end up there in the first place. 0:01:35.400 --> 0:01:38.959 The bulk of the Australians in this detention camp, and 0:01:39.000 --> 0:01:42.240 it's in a desert in the northeast part of Syria. 0:01:43.080 --> 0:01:46.280 The bulk of the children they were either brought over 0:01:46.319 --> 0:01:49.120 to Syria at an incredibly young age We're talking, you know, 0:01:49.200 --> 0:01:52.800 tiny infants, or they've been born in Syria, or they've 0:01:52.800 --> 0:01:55.960 been born in the detention camp. So the bulk of 0:01:55.960 --> 0:01:59.160 them are children aged from as young as five through 0:01:59.160 --> 0:01:59.880 to twelve or thirty. 0:02:00.880 --> 0:02:03.200 And then there are some of their mums as well. 0:02:03.800 --> 0:02:06.520 So we're talking about thirty four people who were on 0:02:06.560 --> 0:02:10.560 the bus around about twenty four of them are children. 0:02:10.960 --> 0:02:12.520 I've spoken with three of the women. 0:02:12.560 --> 0:02:16.120 I've visited the detention camp in September of last year, 0:02:16.720 --> 0:02:20.480 and they're women who are now in their late twenties 0:02:20.520 --> 0:02:25.320 early thirties. They had come over to Syria, some of 0:02:25.320 --> 0:02:28.640 them I know as their partners, the wives of people 0:02:28.680 --> 0:02:31.520 who were fighting in Isis with all of that toxic 0:02:31.639 --> 0:02:35.639 ideology in Isis. They have been as young as seventeen 0:02:35.720 --> 0:02:39.320 eighteen or nineteen. These women, they expressed to me, the 0:02:39.320 --> 0:02:41.680 ones I spoke to, how deeply regretful they were of 0:02:41.720 --> 0:02:44.520 that terrible life decision and how very young they were 0:02:44.560 --> 0:02:46.320 at the time they went over. But you know, I 0:02:46.360 --> 0:02:48.760 don't know the story of each of the women. And 0:02:48.800 --> 0:02:52.600 they found their way into Syria. 0:02:53.320 --> 0:02:56.840 Islamic States have lost their Syrian capital, Ruka. 0:02:57.520 --> 0:03:03.160 And then when the Kurdish horses defeated the ISIS regime, 0:03:03.240 --> 0:03:05.480 and you know, thank you to the Kurdish forces and 0:03:05.600 --> 0:03:13.120 many of them Kurdish women fighters who defeated ISIS. These 0:03:13.160 --> 0:03:16.760 women and their kids got swept up and put into 0:03:16.800 --> 0:03:19.480 a detention camp and they've been held in a detention 0:03:19.720 --> 0:03:24.799 camp for a decade now in northeast Syria. And they 0:03:24.800 --> 0:03:27.520 don't want any part of the conflict in Syria. They 0:03:27.560 --> 0:03:29.360 don't want any part of ISIS. They want to go 0:03:29.440 --> 0:03:31.639 home and bring their kids home. And that's meant they've 0:03:31.639 --> 0:03:34.320 been quite isolated and targeted by some of the other 0:03:34.360 --> 0:03:37.440 people in the camp, who you know, maintain that sort 0:03:37.440 --> 0:03:41.080 of strong push, that ideological push. So they're very isolated. 0:03:41.200 --> 0:03:44.560 There's been instances of violence against them in the camp. 0:03:45.080 --> 0:03:46.840 The kids can't go to the school because they're not 0:03:46.880 --> 0:03:49.680 safe at the school. And you know, it's a series 0:03:49.720 --> 0:03:54.160 of tents and dusty tracks surrounded by barbed wire in 0:03:54.200 --> 0:03:56.320 the middle of a desert in northeast Syria. It's a 0:03:56.360 --> 0:03:57.760 deeply dispariting place. 0:03:58.560 --> 0:04:01.560 So, David, as you said, on Monday, these women and 0:04:01.560 --> 0:04:03.840 the kids, they got on a bus. They were planning 0:04:03.840 --> 0:04:07.480 to leave the camp, get to Damascus and then hopefully 0:04:07.480 --> 0:04:09.720 on to be route and eventually home. 0:04:10.200 --> 0:04:13.080 At the camp in northeastern Syria, a group of women 0:04:13.120 --> 0:04:18.520 and children hurriedly climbed into waiting vans, their faces covered 0:04:18.520 --> 0:04:21.880 with scarps, masks and sunglasses and bags packed. 0:04:23.160 --> 0:04:25.359 But of course, as we know, they were turned back. 0:04:26.400 --> 0:04:28.599 Do we know why that happened or what happened. 0:04:28.880 --> 0:04:31.960 I don't know exactly why it's happened. I've been talking 0:04:32.040 --> 0:04:34.120 with people who are in contact with the families and 0:04:34.120 --> 0:04:39.200 their representatives, and what appears is they got through almost 0:04:39.240 --> 0:04:42.000 all the checkpoints that you passed through going from the 0:04:42.040 --> 0:04:46.560 camp across into the area controlled by the regime and Damascus, 0:04:46.600 --> 0:04:48.880 and they went through I'm told they went through multiple 0:04:48.920 --> 0:04:52.440 of these checkpoints and they were stopped at the final checkpoint. 0:04:52.800 --> 0:04:53.839 And then turned around. 0:04:54.240 --> 0:04:58.679 And there are multiple potential reasons why that has happened, 0:04:58.720 --> 0:05:01.440 and one of the reasons given to us was that 0:05:01.440 --> 0:05:04.760 there had been no effective communication from the Australian government 0:05:04.839 --> 0:05:05.560 to the regime in. 0:05:05.560 --> 0:05:07.880 Damascus to allow that to happen. 0:05:08.360 --> 0:05:11.279 I can't tell you for sure that that's true, but 0:05:11.760 --> 0:05:13.960 I do know they got turned around at the last checkpoint, 0:05:13.960 --> 0:05:17.120 and that would have just been sold destroying. I think 0:05:17.120 --> 0:05:20.919 about all those little kids in the bus, close to 0:05:20.960 --> 0:05:23.440 getting out of this prison, that many of them meeting 0:05:23.520 --> 0:05:25.719 for their life and then failing at their last turtle 0:05:25.880 --> 0:05:26.800 really sold destroying. 0:05:27.240 --> 0:05:27.480 You know. 0:05:27.760 --> 0:05:30.919 It is unfortunate for the children that caught up. 0:05:31.839 --> 0:05:36.400 It is, but we have a very firm view that 0:05:36.480 --> 0:05:40.279 we won't be providing assistance or repatriation. 0:05:40.839 --> 0:05:44.200 David, the PM said about these women, you made your 0:05:44.200 --> 0:05:45.360 bed and now lie in it. 0:05:45.800 --> 0:05:45.960 Now. 0:05:46.000 --> 0:05:48.880 Many of these women, as we just heard, they chose 0:05:48.920 --> 0:05:52.040 to follow their partners over to Syria and to join ISIS. 0:05:52.800 --> 0:05:55.360 And there are Australians who agree with the PM and 0:05:55.400 --> 0:05:59.279 they're worried about them being radicalized, especially after what's happened 0:05:59.279 --> 0:06:02.960 at Bondai. So can you understand why the government isn't 0:06:03.000 --> 0:06:04.440 that keen to welcome them back. 0:06:05.400 --> 0:06:08.800 I can understand people's anxiety about the women and if 0:06:08.800 --> 0:06:11.320 any of them have committed crimes or they have engaged 0:06:11.360 --> 0:06:14.000 in criminal activities where they should be absolutely be held 0:06:14.040 --> 0:06:17.520 to account under Australian law. I can't believe the prime 0:06:17.520 --> 0:06:19.520 ministers said that about a five year old kid or 0:06:19.560 --> 0:06:21.200 a six year old girl. That I saw a seven 0:06:21.279 --> 0:06:23.080 year old kid or an eight year old kid saying 0:06:23.120 --> 0:06:26.000 to Australian children, you made your bed and you sleep 0:06:26.000 --> 0:06:30.039 in it. These children are innocent victims in this. They're 0:06:30.080 --> 0:06:33.599 Australian children and the great majority of these people on 0:06:33.640 --> 0:06:37.599 the bus were Australian kids who had no agency, no 0:06:37.760 --> 0:06:41.320 control over what was happening to them. You know, it's 0:06:41.360 --> 0:06:44.599 hard to realize this, but Anthony Albernezi is failing that 0:06:44.720 --> 0:06:47.520 the morals has set up by Scott Morrison, who in 0:06:47.640 --> 0:06:51.719 twenty twenty two brought a number of women and children 0:06:52.040 --> 0:06:57.080 home from the detention camp in Syria, put in place 0:06:57.240 --> 0:07:01.120 structures with AZO and the AFP to oversight that return, 0:07:01.520 --> 0:07:04.520 put in place reintegration resources so the kids had as 0:07:04.560 --> 0:07:05.880 safe a return as possible. 0:07:06.720 --> 0:07:08.560 You know, I was appalled. 0:07:08.120 --> 0:07:11.040 And shocked and horrified that a labor Prime minister would 0:07:11.040 --> 0:07:12.080 say that about kids. 0:07:12.640 --> 0:07:16.200 And David, one last question from me, do you know 0:07:16.600 --> 0:07:19.720 what other countries are doing about their nationals stuck in 0:07:19.720 --> 0:07:22.520 these camps? Because there are hundreds of people from all 0:07:22.560 --> 0:07:26.320 over the world, from Asia, from Europe, from Canada that 0:07:26.360 --> 0:07:29.120 the UK has had a really hardline position on them. 0:07:29.200 --> 0:07:32.160 So where does Australia fit into. 0:07:32.000 --> 0:07:32.480 All of that? 0:07:33.000 --> 0:07:36.480 Is its position sort of the way most countries are 0:07:36.480 --> 0:07:36.960 looking at it. 0:07:37.560 --> 0:07:44.040 Australia's position is uniquely awful, refusing to have any engagement 0:07:44.160 --> 0:07:47.680 to bring back their own citizens. And what I've been 0:07:47.720 --> 0:07:50.480 to the camp, there's two layers of security at the camp. 0:07:50.600 --> 0:07:55.280 The external security is by a group of women Kurdish 0:07:55.280 --> 0:07:58.240 fighters and other fighters. And they're tough, right, They've been 0:07:58.320 --> 0:08:02.680 fighting Isis for over a decade. And I met with 0:08:02.720 --> 0:08:05.280 them when I went to the camp, and they said 0:08:05.320 --> 0:08:09.200 to me, these tough women who fought Isis and seeing 0:08:09.240 --> 0:08:12.640 their friends and family die. They said, why isn't Australia 0:08:12.720 --> 0:08:15.560 taking these women and children home? They're your women and children. 0:08:15.960 --> 0:08:18.560 Why are you making us look after your women and children? 0:08:18.600 --> 0:08:20.760 And they also said, like the Australians are not the problem. 0:08:21.400 --> 0:08:26.240 There's another camp full of some fifty thousand largely men. Incredibly, 0:08:26.800 --> 0:08:31.800 you know, connected to Isis incredible security risks associated with 0:08:31.840 --> 0:08:36.600 those detainees, but these women and especially these children are 0:08:36.640 --> 0:08:40.000 not the issue when it comes to the extremes it. 0:08:41.760 --> 0:08:44.000 David, thanks for speaking with us today. 0:08:43.800 --> 0:08:44.840 Pleasure, good speaking. 0:08:47.360 --> 0:08:50.479 Coming up. Just how real is the threat of radicalization 0:08:50.760 --> 0:09:03.000 for these women and kids, Josh. We just heard from 0:09:03.040 --> 0:09:07.000 one of our local politicians, David Shubridge, about the need 0:09:07.040 --> 0:09:12.160 to rehabilitate these women and children who've been inside ISIS. Now, 0:09:12.200 --> 0:09:14.720 how worried do you think the public should be about 0:09:14.720 --> 0:09:16.760 them being radicalized in these camps? 0:09:16.960 --> 0:09:19.440 Well, now, these women and children are the thirty four 0:09:19.520 --> 0:09:22.800 Australians who might be coming home. They've been there for 0:09:22.840 --> 0:09:27.200 eight years. So many of those children are We don't 0:09:27.280 --> 0:09:30.400 have any clue if they're radicalized or not radicalized. 0:09:30.760 --> 0:09:33.320 And same with the women. It's a mixed bag. 0:09:33.840 --> 0:09:36.080 There are many women who've come out of those camps 0:09:36.080 --> 0:09:38.360 and said, look, I don't believe in Islam anymore. I 0:09:38.520 --> 0:09:40.559 just want to go home. I want to take care 0:09:40.600 --> 0:09:42.240 of my kids, I want to get them in education. 0:09:42.559 --> 0:09:45.480 So there are mothers from right across the spectrum. You're 0:09:45.480 --> 0:09:48.760 going to get a totally mixed bag, but it's been 0:09:48.840 --> 0:09:53.840 chaos since they were arrested because the Kurdish militia that 0:09:53.960 --> 0:09:58.040 had control of these people in our whole camp, they 0:09:58.280 --> 0:10:02.360 did not have jurisdiction to try these people. America was 0:10:02.400 --> 0:10:04.480 paying for the camp to be held and paying for 0:10:04.559 --> 0:10:07.600 them to hold these people, but America was not interested 0:10:07.720 --> 0:10:10.960 in repatriating or and no one else was, so they 0:10:11.160 --> 0:10:14.640 just got dumped and were kept in this interment camp. 0:10:15.160 --> 0:10:17.640 And now most of them are just been let go 0:10:18.720 --> 0:10:20.920 and there have been a small number that have been 0:10:21.160 --> 0:10:24.360 moved up to Aleppo, but we believe about twenty thousand 0:10:24.800 --> 0:10:30.400 have just fled into Syria, including about six thousand foreigners. 0:10:30.880 --> 0:10:35.439 So these Australians are a small little subset of this group, 0:10:35.520 --> 0:10:39.160 and clearly the Australian government is going to have to 0:10:39.480 --> 0:10:41.720 do some investigation and they're going to have to send 0:10:41.720 --> 0:10:45.040 them to evaluators and figure that out. 0:10:45.280 --> 0:10:48.720 Across the Middle East, though, have there been efforts in 0:10:48.760 --> 0:10:53.520 other countries to try and deradicalize people who had been 0:10:53.600 --> 0:10:55.079 members of Islamic state. 0:10:55.280 --> 0:10:58.040 There have been in Sadi Arabia has a very good 0:10:58.120 --> 0:11:02.319 program they have used in Moms and other Islamic authorities. 0:11:02.360 --> 0:11:06.000 They've given classes and they've had these, you know, sort 0:11:06.040 --> 0:11:09.560 of seminars and discussion groups, sort of like an AA group. 0:11:10.559 --> 0:11:13.840 But they've taken them seriously and that's the most important part, 0:11:13.880 --> 0:11:16.880 and they've discussed it with them, and I think the 0:11:16.920 --> 0:11:19.120 government is going to have to do something. 0:11:18.840 --> 0:11:21.440 Like that, Josh, if we could talk a little bit 0:11:21.440 --> 0:11:25.360 about the broader context of what's happening in Syria. Last month, 0:11:25.400 --> 0:11:28.320 we had the Syrian army sweep into the northern part 0:11:28.360 --> 0:11:31.320 of the country and take over those areas that the 0:11:31.360 --> 0:11:34.560 Kurds had controlled during the civil war. As we know, 0:11:34.640 --> 0:11:39.240 they're now emptying these Isis Islamic state detention camps out. 0:11:39.800 --> 0:11:41.079 Why is the government doing. 0:11:40.920 --> 0:11:43.640 That, Well, We've got two major reasons. 0:11:43.800 --> 0:11:47.240 One is that this government is led by the head 0:11:47.440 --> 0:11:49.320 of al Qaeda, who used to be the head of 0:11:49.320 --> 0:11:50.640 al Qaeda in Syria. 0:11:51.160 --> 0:11:52.079 Ah'ming a shut up. 0:11:52.840 --> 0:11:58.240 Secondly, those people in the camps, those Isis family members, 0:11:58.640 --> 0:12:02.840 many of them come from the tribal members of northeastern Syria. 0:12:03.720 --> 0:12:06.079 But now that I'm going to shut up has swept 0:12:06.120 --> 0:12:08.160 up there. And we've got to remember that many of 0:12:08.200 --> 0:12:11.560 the auxiliary troops he used to roll back the Kurds 0:12:12.000 --> 0:12:15.600 were better in tribes and it's their relatives who are 0:12:15.640 --> 0:12:19.040 in these camps. So they have rolled into these camps 0:12:19.040 --> 0:12:21.280 and they want to let them go. They feel sorry 0:12:21.360 --> 0:12:23.560 for them, they feel like they've been unjustly treated, which 0:12:23.600 --> 0:12:26.520 they have in a sense because they've just been locked 0:12:26.600 --> 0:12:28.840 up and the key has been thrown away, no trials, 0:12:29.120 --> 0:12:32.680 no investigation. So there's a great deal of sympathy for 0:12:32.720 --> 0:12:35.240 these people and a feeling that they've been persecuted both 0:12:35.280 --> 0:12:39.280 by the Americans, by the international community, and by the Kurds. 0:12:39.840 --> 0:12:40.920 So they're letting them go. 0:12:41.640 --> 0:12:44.960 So, Josh, what's going to happen to all of these detainees, because, 0:12:45.000 --> 0:12:46.920 as you said, some of them are being set free 0:12:47.280 --> 0:12:50.880 in Syria, some of them going home to other countries, 0:12:51.280 --> 0:12:54.840 some of them ending up in Iraq. What's going on? 0:12:55.120 --> 0:12:56.120 It's going to be chaos. 0:12:56.200 --> 0:12:59.880 And Syria has been chaos for the last year because 0:13:00.240 --> 0:13:04.160 at the height of the opposition fight against the Osid regime, 0:13:04.240 --> 0:13:08.280 there were one thousand, five hundred different militias in Syria. 0:13:09.400 --> 0:13:11.040 I'm going to shut it took over, but he was 0:13:11.120 --> 0:13:14.400 one militia. There were dozens of other militias in Syria 0:13:14.440 --> 0:13:18.440 that joined him in this takeover. He collected all those 0:13:18.440 --> 0:13:21.360 militia leaders together and said you are now the Syrian army. 0:13:22.080 --> 0:13:25.839 But many of those militia leaders are quasi independent. They 0:13:25.840 --> 0:13:29.920 have their own ideologies. So these people are going to 0:13:30.080 --> 0:13:32.280 go back to their families, they're going to try to 0:13:32.320 --> 0:13:34.360 find a living, they're going to try to escape and 0:13:34.400 --> 0:13:35.120 go back home. 0:13:35.760 --> 0:13:39.720 It is. It's going to be chaos now these women 0:13:39.760 --> 0:13:40.319 and children. 0:13:40.640 --> 0:13:42.920 Syria doesn't really know what to do with them because 0:13:43.440 --> 0:13:45.840 you can't have trials for most of these people because 0:13:45.840 --> 0:13:47.400 there's no evidence against them. 0:13:47.840 --> 0:13:51.560 That evidence has been destroyed. It's already eight years that 0:13:51.600 --> 0:13:53.120 they've been locked up in these camps. 0:13:53.400 --> 0:13:57.480 There isn't a good solution for them. 0:13:57.760 --> 0:14:14.560 Josh, thanks so much for joining us pleasure. Also in 0:14:14.559 --> 0:14:18.080 the news, Pauline Hansen has offered a partial apology for 0:14:18.120 --> 0:14:21.760 suggesting there are no good Muslims. The One Nation leader 0:14:21.800 --> 0:14:25.000 has been widely condemned for the comment made while attacking 0:14:25.040 --> 0:14:27.880 the government over the possible return of the wives and 0:14:28.000 --> 0:14:32.000 children of Islamic state fighters. Hanson now says she doesn't 0:14:32.040 --> 0:14:35.520 believe there are no good Muslims, but added a qualifier, saying, 0:14:35.920 --> 0:14:39.040 in general that is what they want, a world caliphate, 0:14:39.400 --> 0:14:41.800 and I am not going to apologize. I will have 0:14:41.920 --> 0:14:45.680 my say now before it's too late, and Australians are 0:14:45.720 --> 0:14:48.440 in for the biggest rise in health insurance premiums in 0:14:48.480 --> 0:14:51.920 a decade. A four point four one percent increase will 0:14:52.000 --> 0:14:55.520 kick in from April one. The hike, which is above inflation, 0:14:56.120 --> 0:14:58.920 was approved by the Health Minister, who says it reflects 0:14:59.040 --> 0:15:02.160 higher medical and ho hospital costs over the last financial year. 0:15:03.560 --> 0:15:06.840 I'm Nicole Johnston. This is seven am. Thanks for listening.