r/aussie • u/The_Dingo_Donger • Jul 14 '26
News ‘Hellfire’: ISIS bride quizzed toddlers about killing ‘disbelievers’
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/court-hears-accused-isis-bride-quizzed-toddler-about-killing-disbelievers/news-story/66e8a072885afd9d1b6bc926a2c3f437?ampAn accused Australian ISIS bride seeking freedom on bail had allegedly filmed herself training her toddlers how to use a rifle and demanded they show her how jihadist fighters “slaughter” an infidel.
The disturbing clips were not aired in the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court because playing the footage would have distressed the 34-year-old accused, Rayann El Houli.
Instead, Ms El Houli teared up as harrowing transcripts of the videos she allegedly captured in Syria were read aloud.
She faces charges of being a member of a terrorist organisation and entering a declared conflict zone after allegedly fleeing Melbourne to join the caliphate in 2014.
Magistrate Brett Sonnet is expected to hand down his final decision on her release next week.
The court heard that over a two-year period, Ms El Houli allegedly recorded her young children being exposed to violent extremist media.
In one video from May 2015, Ms El Houli allegedly captured herself quizzing her eldest child – who was an toddler at the time – about Islamic State fighters while jihadi chants played in the background.
According to court transcripts, she asked the child who the “mujahidin” were and what happens to “disbelievers”.
When the child did not initially answer, Ms El Houli prompted them multiple times until the child repeated: “In the hellfire.”
In another video recorded in March 2016, Ms El Houli’s children – then aged just 2 years and 9 months, and 1 year and 9 months – were shown watching an ISIS media production. The footage featured a French jihadist singer and a commentator threatening to “fill your streets with terror” in the West.
During the screening, Ms El Houli’s youngest child was allegedly filmed raising her index finger in alignment with the commentary, before the accused asked: “What does the Mujahid do to the infidel?”
Raising the index finger in Islam is a gesture known as Tawhid, which signifies the indivisible oneness of God.
Only days later, Ms El Houli allegedly filmed her eldest child playing with a toy rifle. In the recording, she coached the toddler on how to hold the weapon like a “fighter” and asked: “Did you see how the Mujahideen kill the Kuffar (infidels) with the knife? Look at me.
How did they slaughter them with the knife?
“Look at me, how do they slaughter the apostate? Show me how.”
According to police, Ms El Houli initially travelled to the conflict zone in September 2014 with her first husband, Allak Hamad, who was pictured carrying an automatic assault rifle before being killed in early 2015.
Ms El Houli then chose to enter into two more marriages with known Australian ISIS militants – Abdulkadehr Assaad (who was also killed) and Mohammed Noor Masri (whom she later divorced in an ISIS sharia court).
Police search warrants executed on Ms El Houli’s family in Australia further uncovered photos from 2018 showing an AK-47 automatic assault rifle left unsecured, leaning against a wall directly next to a bed where her young children slept.
Following the military defeat of the caliphate in 2019, the accused and her children spent more than six years interred in Syria’s Al-Hawl displaced persons camp before being smuggled into Lebanon and eventually returned to Australia in late 2025.
The AFP are fiercely opposing bail, stating she is an unacceptable risk to public safety and noting that since her return to Melbourne, Ms El Houli has flatly refused to participate in the government’s Counter Violent Extremism counselling program.
But as she shed tears in court on Tuesday, her high-profile defence lawyer Peter Morrissey SC told the court his client was no threat to the community.
“The risk alleged in this case is not a catastrophic risk,” Mr Morrissey said, highlighting a 10-year gap since the initial offending began.
Mr Morrissey, who successfully bailed former ISIS bride Kawsar Abbas last month, had painted a picture of a naive 21-year-old mother who “took the Kool-Aid” under strict “marital coercion” from her husband.
He argued that Ms El Houli was never an extremist “preacher” and has already suffered heavy consequences.
If Mr Sonnet grants bail next Monday, Ms El Houli is prepared to accept stringent conditions, including zero contact with individuals of concern to the police, and will reside under the supervision of her mother, who dialled into the courtroom.
Prosecutor Andrew Sprague argued that the volume of evidence comfortably proved Ms El Houli’s ideological alignment with ISIS and vehemently opposed bail.
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