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Three Australian women with ties to the Islamic State group are facing charges after returning home from Syria.
The women arrived as part of a group of Australian families, including children, with links to the self-proclaimed IS group.
Two of the women from Victoria, aged 53 and 31, have been charged with crimes against humanity offences, including enslavement, allegedly committed in Syria.
Both women are expected to face court with multiple charges, each carrying a maximum penalty of 25 years' imprisonment.
A 32 year old woman was arrested in Sydney on charges of allegedly entering and remaining in a declared conflict zone and joining ISIS.
Both of these charges carry a maximum penalty of 10 years' imprisonment.
AFP Assistant Commissioner Counter Terrorism Stephen Nutt says the charges follow years of police work.
"Operational planning for these matters started in 2015...All I can say is safety of the community is the number one priority for all agencies involved."
Earlier in the week, the federal government confirmed the group had booked flights, with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese reiterating the government would play no role in their repatriation.
"The government has not and will not provide any assistance to this group. These are people who have made what is a horrific choice to join a dangerous terrorist organisation and to place their children in an extraordinary situation."
The women are often referred to as 'ISIS brides', given their perceived or real links to former I-S group fighters in Syria.
Since the collapse of the IS group in Syria in 2019, they have been living at the al-Roj detention camp in northern Syria.
The Opposition has raised concerns the returning women and children pose a potential security risk.
Nationals Senator Bridget McKenzie told Nine's Today show that the government should have canceled their return.
"There are serious concerns about this cohort of women ... I want to know why the government hasn't canceled their travel documents on national security grounds."
However, as Australia citizens, Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke says there was little the government could do to prevent their return.
"There are very serious limits on what can be done with respect to preventing a citizen of a country returning to their country. The legal threshold that we have is with respect to temporary exclusion orders. I have received advice in one instance so far of that threshold having been met, and when I received that advice I acted immediately, and that exclusion order remains in place."
Officials have not provided details on what will happen to the children, many of whom were born in prison camps with notoriously bad conditions and the presence of extremist groups.
The children are expected to need assistance reintegrating into Australian society, with AFP Commissioner Krissy Barret saying some will likely need deradicalisation support.
Independent Senator David Pocock told Nine's Today Show that the children should not be punished for their parents' decisions.
"I think the thing that we really have to distinguish here is between grown adults and children who have had no say in going overseas, and surely we want them back here in Australia, where they can both face the full force of law and also be de radicalised, rather than over somewhere else in the world where they can be radicalised and at some later date come back. So I've found the whole debate, or particularly around the children, really, really disappointing. These are Australian citizens, and yes, we can absolutely hold them to account, but Australian children deserve a second chance."
Education Minister Jason Clare says that while the government has no sympathy for supporters of the I-S group, the children are not to blame, and the situation for each family is different.
"Children don't get to pick who their parents are and these children have seen things that no child should ever have to see, and the trauma that they have experienced will be with them for some time, and that is why the work that the Federal Police will do and need to do is so important."
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