Sydney woman accused of IS ideology enforcement in Syrian camp

It would come as a silent threat in the middle of the night — a niqab and a knife — left outside a tent in the squalid, prison-like detention camp housing Islamic State-linked families in Syria.

The message for the occupant was simple: wear the black veil preferred by the Islamic State (IS), or else.

This is one of the not-so-subtle acts in support of IS ideology that Sydney woman Hodan Abby is alleged to have been behind during her years in the Kurdish-run detention camp, al-Roj, in north-east Syria, the ABC can reveal.

She is the last known Australian IS-linked woman in Syria and was issued with a Temporary Exclusion Order (TEO) in February, barring her from returning to Australia.

That order was later revoked, and she was issued a return permit last month.

A security source from within the camp — who doesn't want to be named — but who dealt directly with Hodan Abby — described the Australian as a cunning, threatening figure and the "driving force" behind many of the problems in the camp.

According to the security source, Ms Abby acted as what they called a "Sharia judge", or an enforcer of Sharia law, arranged marriages for IS women over the phone, and bribed other women in the camp with charity money to win their loyalty.

Some of her alleged actions landed her in trouble with camp authorities — the source said Ms Abby admitted to taking instructions and orders from IS commanders in Idlib and Jarabulus and passing them on to others within the camp. The security source said they oversaw Hodan Abby's two stints in the camp "prison" in 2021 and 2022.

The ABC understands that in these camps, intelligence officers conduct interrogations and detain individuals periodically, and the prison is an informal detention facility with no formal jurisdiction or judicial proceedings.

Devoted 'by choice'

Former US diplomat, Peter Galbraith — who has spent decades helping rescue IS-linked children from north-east Syria — said his sources in the camp also describe Ms Abby as an IS "true believer".

"She is known in the camps to the people I'm in touch with, and they say that she was very radical," he told the ABC.

"She would try to enforce Islamic dress, that she made people — along with another woman — go to their tents [and] make them repent any supposed sins they committed, to say the Shahada [Islamic declaration of faith]," he said.

His source alleged that an ideological disagreement with another camp resident led to violence.

"In 2021, she allegedly hit a woman with a hammer," he said.

His source also said she spent a lot of time talking online to IS men to solicit donations from them.

He said his contacts said there was no evidence that Ms Abby was coerced into following IS ideology in the camps.

"There are a number of women in the camps, of course, including the women that I talk to, who have renounced ISIS — they no longer follow the ISIS dress code, and they can function in the camp.

Connections to the highly radicalised

The camp security source who spoke to the ABC also said Ms Abby was "very close" to a family which includes Khadra Essa — a Dutch-Somali woman who the US State Department said "advocated the use of violence and encouraged other ISIS members to conduct attacks in multiple countries". The State Department has put a USD$5 million bounty on her head.

Essa, also known as Umm Qaqa al-Somali, is accused of being the chief Sharia instructor of an all-female fighting battalion that formed in Raqqa in 2016 called the Nusaybah Katibah (ISIS-NK), and is trained in using weapons, explosives, and carrying out suicide operations.

"Additionally, she has taught ISIS extremist ideology that justified suicide operations and killing of civilians and has recruited new members for ISIS," the State Department said.

Essa is most well-known for her role in allegedly hiding two US-born children who had been taken to the self-declared IS caliphate by their mother, who died in an air strike.

"In 2019, she held US siblings Yusuf and Zahra Shikee and took them to an undisclosed location in Syria after their mother died during a military strike against ISIS forces," the State Department said.

Mr Galbraith has been looking for Yusuf and Zahra but said they have "simply disappeared".

"Radical ISIS women hid other people's children to keep them from going to families who might be unbelievers,"

"Keeping children in miserable conditions and away from their families is yet another example of the cruelty of ISIS and its adherents. Cruel to the families and cruel to the children," he said.

Khadra Essa is also the sister-in-law of Australian doctor Tareq Kamleh, who travelled to Syria to join IS. He took the name Abu Yousef al-Australie but was dubbed "Dr Jihad" by the media. He worked in paediatrics in Raqqa and appeared in two IS propaganda videos. It's believed he was killed in Syria in 2018.

Several years ago, Mr Galbraith discovered Kamleh's wife and the sister of Khadra Essa — Umm Yakeen — was hiding a US-born child whose mother had died in an air strike. Mr Galbraith managed to get the child repatriated to her extended family in America.

"The Essa family not only adhere to an extreme form of ISIS ideology, but they are participants and significant actors in crimes that are part of ISIS, that is to say, kidnapping and hiding children among other things," Mr Galbraith said.

It's not clear when all allegations about Ms Abby's time in the camp occurred or if they are reflective of her most recent behaviour and views.

"Being held in a closed detention camp since 2019 has a very different experience on different women who have been held there," Devorah Margolin, senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said.

Dr Margolin has been tracking the detention of people linked to the Islamic State since 2017.

"Others felt the experience that their countries of origin were leaving them in these detention camps, not repatriating them, was enough of a radicalising factor."

As of March this year, the US State Department reported that 2,454 people remain in the al-Roj camp, with most being foreign nationals.

Dr Margolin said in more recent years, security problems that had long existed in the larger al Hol camp began to appear in the much smaller al Roj camp.

"It includes policing of other women, hurting and beating other women, it includes things such as attacking Syrian Democratic Forces that are running the camp and NGOs and creating almost no-go zones in the camp that security and NGO workers were not able to access because those allied to the Islamic State were creating their own communities in the camp," she said.

Return permit issued

The ABC previously revealed that Hodan Abby is alleged to have been known as Umm Osama in the so-called IS caliphate and allegedly abused a Yazidi girl who was enslaved in her home for several months in 2016.

Ms Abby was forbidden from returning home earlier this year after the Home Affairs Department issued her with a Temporary Exclusion Order (TEO), designed to prevent someone who poses a terrorism or security threat from returning to Australia.

Last month, she was issued a return permit. It’s believed she is still in Syria with her daughter, who reportedly has shrapnel injuries and needs surgery that she has been unable to get abroad.

Professor Donald Rothwell, international law expert at Australian National University, said these latest allegations likely informed the government's decision to issue the TEO, and could form the basis of charges against Ms Abby.

"One can only speculate at the moment as to what those charges could be, but the Commonwealth criminal code under Australian federal law creates a raft of offences generally within the category of a crime against humanity, which would fall into some of the categories that have been alleged with respect to Hodan Abbey's conduct," he said.

The ABC has contacted her family and lawyers for comment, but has received no response.

The AFP has said they have "no comment" when asked if they are aware of the allegations or have plans to charge Ms Abby.