ISIS Brides Are Back and Albo’s Cover-Up Is Collapsing! By George Christensen

They travelled to Syria to join the most sadistic terrorist group in modern history. They lived under the black flag of the Islamic State, while others were tortured, enslaved, raped, and beheaded. Now they are back in Australia. And the Albanese Government does not want you to know about it.

Survivors of ISIS rule speak of public beheadings for alleged sorcery or spying, bodies displayed as warnings, morality police punishing people for listening to music or smoking, and women flogged for failing to cover every inch of skin. Homes of perceived enemies were destroyed, families murdered, and food, fuel and medicines diverted to fighters. Hundreds of Australians still chose to leave a secular, liberal democracy to serve a rigid, violent doctrine.

Six individuals, two women and four children, returned to Australian soil on September 26 after escaping Syrian detention and smuggling themselves through Lebanon.

But even the pathway out of Syria was not clean. Reports confirm the cohort was detained in Beirut for lacking valid visas and entry records. They obtained Australian travel documents following identity and security vetting, and their re-entry was subsequently approved by the authorities.

The Department of Home Affairs had been watching the two women and four children for months before their arrival on September 26, even as ministers publicly declined to provide details and insisted there had been no government repatriation.

And yet, for months, the government denied involvement, dodged specifics during Senate estimates, and kept its answers vague and opaque. The public was kept in the dark while women linked to the Islamic State were quietly reinserted into our communities.

This isn't speculation. It is confirmed in black and white by senior bureaucrats and ministers who, under pressure, have now admitted they knew of the return months before it happened.

Home Affairs Department Secretary Stephanie Foster revealed under Senate questioning that she knew in June that the cohort was returning. She later confirmed she had personally briefed Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke. She also confirmed that of the four children who arrived, two had been granted Australian citizenship by descent, meaning their arrival required coordination between multiple departments to approve their applications and issue official documentation.

Foster made it plainer still, referring to the return as "personally arranged travel," and acknowledging that Home Affairs did not know when or how the cohort would return. She refused to reveal which state the women and children are in, citing "risk sensitivity," and could not say which state or territory police force is managing them.

But even with this paper trail, the Albanese Government continues to deny involvement.

"Australia did not provide assistance," Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told the media.

Tony Burke told Parliament:

"This is not the first time that Australian citizens who made that decision have returned. When Australian citizens seek to return to Australia, they are able to do so."

He went on to admit, "There has been no repatriation. The Government is not settling people."

When questioned on why exclusion powers weren't used or why the government was involved in passport approvals, Foreign Minister Penny Wong refused to answer.

"Everything after 'presumably' is your hypothetical, so I'm not responding to it," she snapped at Senator James Paterson during a Senate Estimates hearing.

Asked if she could confirm whether the women are in Australia, she again refused. Asked how many are here, where they are, or what security measures are in place, she repeated the mantra of "privacy obligations" and insisted the public has no right to know. When pushed on whether giving the women passports counted as assistance, she went silent. She insisted officials were acting in accordance with government obligations.

While Wong hid behind process, little-known Labor Senator Murray Watt delivered only a generic assurance, "I can assure people that our security agencies are aware of the people of interest who are in this cohort."

He added:

"Our agencies have been monitoring these individuals for some time, and our government has confidence in those agencies to keep Australia safe."

However, confidence is not a plan, and it is not transparency.

The bureaucratic tap dance is deliberate. They are splitting hairs, redefining "assistance" to exclude issuing passports and citizenship, as if that is not a form of facilitation.

Senator James Paterson exposed this sham in estimates, pointing out that:

"… in order for those children, who were born overseas, to come to Australia, they first have to apply for citizenship by descent from the Department of Home Affairs. And once that is granted, they then have to apply for a passport from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Otherwise, they can't board a plane, and they can't enter our country."

He added bluntly, "These people have only returned with the blessing of the Albanese Government."

Paterson also drove home the most damning choice the government made, the refusal to use Temporary Exclusion Orders to block the return of people associated with a terrorist organisation. He spelled it out:

"ISIS and an ISIS bride are the definition of someone who's associated with the terrorist organisation," he said.

"And this is not just any terrorist organisation, but one of the most depraved and reprehensible we've seen in decades."

Every time a question was asked of the government during Senate Estimates, it was taken on notice, ignored, or dismissed as being for "another department."

The avoidance is systematic. Prime Minister and Cabinet officials acknowledged that they had been briefed by DFAT about passport applications, but would not specify when. Senior PM and Cabinet (PM&C) figures, including Nadine Williams, Richard Sadleir, and Kendra Morony, declined to confirm even the most basic facts, and when pressed in the Finance and Public Administration Committee, the stock replies were privacy, the wrong committee, or we will take it on notice.

When Senator Michaelia Cash sought at least a timeframe for DFAT passport briefings, senior national security aide Richard Sadleir acknowledged PM&C had received information from DFAT at a meeting, then took timing on notice, while Penny Wong insisted the questioning should be directed to DFAT and Home Affairs.

Senator Cash called it what it is, a cover-up.

"There was nothing asked today that would infringe on the privacy of any individual. This is an extremely weak excuse for what amounts to a shoddy cover-up."

On the ground, communities are already asking the questions Canberra refuses to answer. Western Sydney MP Dai Le pressed for assurances that the cohort would not be settled in her electorate of Fowler, a community that includes people who fled ISIS brutality. She was given nothing resembling an answer.

The question is bigger than one electorate. As one news editorial today asked, how reassuring is generic "monitoring" to the tens of thousands of Iraqis and Syrians who rebuilt their lives here after fleeing ISIS? Can anyone be certain these women and their children are no longer loyal to a worldview utterly opposed to our way of life? The government has not answered.

Asked about when the Prime Minister was briefed, Penny Wong admitted that he is "regularly briefed on national security matters," but would not say if he knew about the return before rejecting media reports in September as "not accurate."

According to the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, they were briefed by DFAT about the passport applications, but refused to say when. They also refused to confirm whether the women are in Australia, where they are located, or whether they are under investigation or facing criminal charges.

The Coalition has demanded to know why the Albanese Government has failed to prosecute any of the women under the Criminal Code, which makes it an offence to travel to, or stay in, government-declared terrorist zones.

They've asked why Australians weren't informed, why there is no transparency, why no charges have been laid, and why the Government continues to pretend it played no role.

Australians deserve to know whether criminal investigations actually exist.

The Australian Federal Police would only say, "The AFP has no comment." The Attorney-General's Department pointed back to Home Affairs. Any prosecution would be handled by the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions, but that requires referrals and evidence from the AFP and security agencies, and none of that has been disclosed.

Shadow Attorney-General Julian Leeser posed some serious questions that remain unanswered:

"How were these ISIS brides brought back into Australia? Why was it done in secret? Where are they now? Which suburbs are they living in? Are they under investigation for these extremely serious criminal offences? It would be absurd if people who had been involved in criminal matters that represent a fundamental rejection of Australia and its values were not prosecuted."

The criminal threshold is not theoretical. The Criminal Code makes it an offence to travel to or remain in a declared terrorist area. Al Raqqa province in Syria, a key ISIS stronghold, was declared from December 2014 to November 2017. If any presence overlaps that window, the public expects charging decisions, not quiet settlement.

Senator Paterson summed up the cause for alarm over this ISIS bride blunder and cover-up:

"The government must reassure Australians that they are on top of this issue, and based on their handling of this issue so far, I have no confidence that they are."

This entire affair has been shrouded in secrecy, hidden from Parliament and the public, and only revealed under direct Senate questioning. And even now, the details remain deliberately withheld.

The Albanese Government claims to be transparent. They campaigned on sunlight, openness, and accountability. But on the return of ISIS collaborators, their behaviour reeks of fear, evasion, and contempt.

They are gambling with our national security, playing semantics while terrorist sympathisers are placed goodness knows where in our communities. The Australian people have been lied to, gaslit, and denied the truth.

The question is not whether the ISIS brides are here. That's already confirmed.

The question is, what else has this government hidden from you?

https://nationfirst.substack.com/p/isis-brides-are-back-and-albos-cover