Australian authorities have charged a 34-year-old woman, identified in local media as Rayann El Houli, with membership of the Islamic State group and entering a declared conflict zone after she returned from Syria in September 2024. Police say she travelled to Syria in 2013 or 2014, was detained by Kurdish forces in 2019, and was held in the al-Hawl camp before eventually returning to Australia; she appeared in a Melbourne court on Thursday. The charges are part of a broader investigation into a group of women and children repatriated from al-Roj (a camp in north-east Syria where families of IS fighters have been held since 2019), with several other returnees also facing serious charges including crimes against humanity and enslavement.