An Australian member of Islamic State who was wounded in the extremist group’s final battle and whose fate was not publicly known has been discovered alive and in custody in a prison in north-eastern Syria.
Mustafa Hajj-Obeid, 41, who is one of a cohort of accused IS members whose Australian citizenship was stripped and then restored in 2022 after a legal challenge, has been reported as missing for the past six years since the military defeat of IS.
He was encountered by the Guardian – with his head shaved and wearing a brown jumpsuit – by chance during a rare tour of Panorama prison, a detention centre for accused IS members run by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
Permitted to speak for only a few minutes through a small grate in a cell housing about two dozen men, Hajj-Obeid told the Guardian he had no idea if his family in Australia were aware he had survived. “I really don’t know,” he said. “I know nothing, seriously.”
He admitted to having been an IS member but said he deeply regretted his actions. “I’ve been here for six years and it’s been traumatising,” he said, the cell floor behind him lined with thin, grey sleeping mats and what appeared to be plastic children’s cutlery. “Many people died, it’s been overwhelming.”
About 4,500 suspected IS fighters are being held in the “black hole” facility in the desert city of Hasakah indefinitely and without charge. Prisoners are permitted outside to exercise for 45 minutes each day but live in crowded, stifling conditions that have led to regular, untreated tuberculosis outbreaks.
Hajj-Obeid said he left Australia in 2015, claiming he was motivated to travel to Syria “to help”. “It was the situation in Syria, Bashar [al-Assad, the former Syrian president], the killing, the drama,” he said.
“I had Facebook at home and I would sit and obviously, surf the net, see what’s happening. Really at that time I saw the situation, but I didn’t judge it well.
“I came and got caught in a quagmire, I didn’t know how to get out,” he said. “I tried to get out a few times, a number of times, and I couldn’t get out.”
A close family member in Sydney told the Guardian she had learned that Hajj-Obeid had survived the military defeat of IS and was in custody about two years ago, but had received no other information since. She wept as she learned of the Guardian’s encounter with him.
Hajj-Obeid worked as a security guard in Sydney before he left Australia in 2015, telling family he was going on a late honeymoon to Malaysia with his wife, Rayan Hamdoush. “It seemed normal,” the family member, who requested anonymity, said after he had been found.
She said Hajj-Obeid had been religious but had never said or done anything that indicated he was becoming radicalised. “We didn’t suspect anything,” she said. “Obviously now when you look back, you sit there and think, you know, what did I miss?”
The couple resurfaced on what appeared to be a Syrian battlefield, Hajj-Obeid reportedly posting pro-IS messages on social media along with pictures wearing military fatigues and holding pistols and assault rifles. He contacted his family around that time to confirm he had joined IS.
“We didn’t hear from him for a long time after that,” the close family member said. “He’d contact his mum more than his sister or brother, but it was always very short. Many times his mum would think he was probably dead because of how minimal the contact was.”
She said the family was never contacted by Australian security agencies and had no idea of Hajj-Obeid’s welfare as the war between IS and a US-led coalition grew in intensity through 2015 and the following years.
“It was terrible,” the family member said. “You’re just constantly living on edge. Like, what am I going to hear tomorrow? What am I going to see tomorrow? It was just constantly living in fear.”
Hajj-Obeid and his wife moved with IS as its so-called “caliphate” shrank from 34,000 sq miles at its peak to a single Syrian city, Baghuz, on the bank of the Euphrates, where the group’s most loyal fighters and supporters held a bloody last stand. IS was declared defeated in March 2019 when the SDF took control of the city, detaining tens of thousands of suspected IS fighters, their wives and children.
Hajj-Obeid sustained shrapnel injuries to his back during the final battle, which his family said occurred while he was trying to get his wife to safety.
“[Hajj-Obeid] spoke to us maybe the few days before [the defeat],” the family member said. “He wanted to give himself up, but at the same time he didn’t know what was going to happen.”
The family heard nothing about him for the nearly four years that followed until they were contacted by the Red Cross around early 2023 and learned he was alive, “in reasonable health”, and being held by Kurdish-led forces.
His wife, Hamdoush, had given herself up in March 2019 and was detained in a prison camp for IS-linked women and children. A few weeks after her arrest, she learned she was pregnant. She gave birth to a baby boy in the al-Hawl camp in November 2019. Hajj-Obeid’s family believe he is not aware he has a child.
The Australian government stripped Hajj-Obeid of his nationality in 2019, claiming he was eligible for Lebanese citizenship, but was forced to reverse the decision after a successful high court challenge by another man detained in Syria for his connections to IS. Hajj-Obeid has no lawyer and is unlikely to know of the legal wrangling around his case.
The family member said she only glanced at the letter restoring his citizenship before stashing it away. “I’ve sort of lost hope,” she said. “It doesn’t mean they’re going to bring him back.”
The Australian government has repatriated four women and 21 children from detention camps in Syria. At least 42 Australians – including 11 women and 31 children – are still being held without charge, including Hamdoush and her son. The now five-year-old boy has not received a DNA test to be formally recognised as her child and is therefore not yet eligible for Australian citizenship.
At least a dozen Australian men are known to be detained in prisons across the region and – despite calls from the US and the SDF for foreign countries to repatriate their citizens – there is little appetite among the Australian government or public for their return.
“I know [Hajj-Obeid] has to face the justice system,” his family member said. “If he had a 10-year or 15-year sentence, you would at least know when his time would be up. But we don’t know if he’ll be there for the rest of his life. He’s just stuck in limbo.
“At least being in an Australian jail, you could visit him – know where he is.”
Asked whether he had a message for his family, Hajj-Obeid appeared close to tears. “To my mother that I love her, and to forgive me,” he said.
“My sister, my brother, my father. I love them all very much and I hope to see them soon. My wife in the camp, I love her very much and I ask her to forgive me for what I put her through and what I put my family through.”
As he spoke, a guard in a balaclava and carrying a club slammed the hatch on his cell shut, sealing him off again.
Additional reporting by Baderkhan Ahmad
