Jihadi survivors need

Samantha Sally, Shamima Begum, Lisa Smith and Suhayra Aden. New Zealand has now joined other Western nations grappling with the question of how to deal with Islamic State returnees following the eradication of the caliphate in Syria and Iraq.

Hundreds of young women were recruited and Isis targeted young Westerners for the cause. Some were willing, others were coerced, forced or tricked.

Sam Sally was an Indiana mother who lived in Raqqa, the seat of power for Isis. Her husband was a sniper and her son, 10, was forced to threaten President Donald Trump in a propaganda video shown around the world.

Her story (told in the fascinating Iamnota monster podcast and documentary Return from Isis) is complex, and opaque. She says she was tricked into taking her young children to Syria, beaten while pregnant and tortured.

Last year, the 35-year-old was sentenced to 61⁄2 years in prison, pleading guilty to financing terrorism.

Begum’s case whipped up a vitriolic frenzy in the British press. She was 15 when she left London to become a jihadi bride. Four years later she was found, pregnant and detained at the al-Hawl refugee camp in northern Syria. The baby died, as did her other two children. The UK government stripped her of citizenship.

Irish soldier Lisa Smith, 38, was deported from Syria to Dublin in 2019 and is now facing charges of financing terrorism as well as being a member of Isis.

Last week, Turkish authorities detained three New Zealanders trying to cross their border with Syria.

Aden was a 26-year-old dual citizen, until last year, when Australia revoked her citizenship. It’s claimed she’s been living in Syria since at least 2014, and had three children, one now dead.

Like Sally and Begum, her story is equivocal. Australian journalist Dylan Welch, who interviewed