Australian battle over Isis orphans

Grandmother wants children to return, PM says it won’t happen any time soon

Apolitical row is brewing in Australia over the fate of orphans of Isis (Islamic State) parents languishing in a camp in Syria. The three children were taken from Sydney to Syria in 2014 by their parents, who have since died.

The eldest, Zaynab, 17, who has two children of her own and is pregnant with a third; Hoda, 16; and Humzeh, 8, were found in al-Hol displacement camp this month by Karen Nettleton, their grandmother.

Their father, Khaled Sharrouf — Australia’s most notorious Isis jihadist — was stripped of his citizenship after an image emerged of one of his sons being made to hold the severed head of a Syrian soldier.

Sharrouf and his two eldest sons — Abdullah, 12, and Zarqawi, 11 — were killed in a 2017 airstrike near Raqqa. His wife, Tara Nettleton, a Muslim convert, died in hospital a year later.

However, Nettleton’s attempt to get her grandchildren out of Syria has been beset with problems.

Scott Morrison, the Australian Prime Minister, suggested that the children would not return home any

time soon, saying he was “not going to put any Australian life at risk to extract people from these conflict zones”.

Morrison is campaigning for his conservative coalition to be reelected for a third three-year term on May 18. He argues that his Government is stronger on national security and border protection than the centre-left opposition Labor Party.

Labor leader Bill Shorten has said the issue shouldn’t be politicised.

Nettleton, 62, insists her grandchildren and great-grandchildren are not a threat. “Just because their last name is Sharrouf doesn’t mean they are monsters,” she said.

Zaynab said the siblings should not be blamed for their predicament. She said: “We weren’t the ones that chose to come here. We were brought here by our parents. And now that our parents are gone, we want to live,” she told ABC Australia. “And for me and my children, I want to live a normal life, just like anyone would want to live a normal life.”

Emotional footage of the reunion was broadcast on ABC on Monday showing Nettleton finding her grandchildren in al-Hol camp.