Isis bride brainwashed daughter with jihadist videos and taught her how to use assault rifles

An Isis bride brainwashed her daughter with jihadist videos and taught her how to use assault rifles, a court has heard.

Rayann El Houli, 34, cried as transcripts of recordings she made while living in Syria were read aloud at Melbourne Magistrates’ Court.

She is alleged to have filmed training her children in 2016, at the time they were aged one and two, to use a rifle before asking them about Isis fighters as jihadi chants played in the background.

In one video, she allegedly filmed her eldest child playing with a toy rifle and asked: “Look at me … How do they slaughter the apostate? Show me how.”

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The children, whose faces had been redacted, saw one in a floral dress holding a rifle and another in a sweatshirt holding pistol.

Houli, who was arrested after returning to Australia last year, lived under Islamic State rule in Syria from 2014 until the group was defeated in 2019.

Upon her return, she was charged with travelling to a declared conflict zone and joining a terrorist organisation.

She appeared in court on Tuesday to seek bail.

Senior Constable Paul Sherlock of the Australian Federal Police told the court that Houli showed her children videos of jihadist fighters.

Her youngest child was allegedly filmed raising her index finger in a gesture of support for Isis in March 2016.

She was then asked by her mother: “What does the mujahid [Islamic soldier] do to the infidel? Where does Allah put the disbelievers? In the hellfire.”

The child responded: “In the hellfire.”

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A few days later, Houli allegedly coached her older child to “act like a mujahidin” and to hold an imitation weapon: “Did you see how the mujahidin kill the kuffar [infidels] with the knife? Look at me. How did they slaughter them with the knife?”

Videos were not shown to the court, but transcripts were read out to the court.

One scene from 2018 allegedly showed children asleep in a bed with an AK-47 rifle leaning against a wall next to them.

Police state that Houli travelled to Syria in September 2014 with her first husband, Allak Hamad, before he was killed in early 2015.

She then went on to marry two other known Australian Isis militants: Abdulkadehr Assad, who was also killed, and Mohammed Noor Masri, whom she divorced in an Isis sharia court.

When she returned to Australia last year, she refused to take part in a programme aimed at countering violent extremism, the court was told.

Earlier this year, another group of Isis-linked women and children were allowed to re-enter Australia, leading to the arrest of various women on terrorism charges.

Janai Samarra Safar, 32, one of those arrested, was refused bail for a second time on Wednesday.

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