Former housemate of ISIS bride Kirsty Rosse-Emile said she wanted to ‘make bombs’ as she tries to return home

A former housemate of Australian ISIS bride Kirsty Rosse-Emile says she was stunned when, as a teenager, Rosse-Emile declared she did not want to return to school and instead wanted to “go and make bombs”.

As Ms Rosse-Emile and another 10 ISIS brides attempt to return to Australia, the woman — identified only as Sara — told the Daily Mail about her conversation with Ms Rosse-Emile when they were teenagers.

Ms Rosse-Emile was about 17 at the time and using her Islamic name Asmaa when she made the remark during a discussion about studying and going back to school.

“When she said she wanted to make bombs, I was shocked and I didn’t know what to say,” Sara said.

“This wasn’t her mentality when she was 14, this was when she was a married woman, and it wasn’t something that she made up on the spot.

“It was in response to a question about going to school to study.

“Even if she doesn’t want to do that anymore, she would still have that mentality and we don’t want that here.”

Sara lived with Rosse-Emile and her Moroccan husband, Nabil Kadmiry, in south-east Melbourne in late 2010.

The couple rented a self-contained unit out the back of her property before moving out in early 2011.

During the time the couple lived on her property, Sara travelled overseas and they agreed to feed her dog while she was away. However, messages published by the Daily Mail show Rosse-Emile later advising they had moved and could no longer care for her pet.

Sara said the couple had moved to the Al-Furqan Islamic study centre in Springvale South. The centre was later shut down in 2016 after counter-terrorism raids linked members to Islamic State.

Sara said the couple had some help making plans to travel to Syria, including signing documents to release Kadmiry’s superannuation funds to pay for their trip.

Ms Rosse-Emile, who grew up in south-east Melbourne, was 19 when she went to Syria with Kadmiry in 2014.

In 2019 Kadmiry was captured by Kurdish forces when they defeated the terror group. He is reportedly in a Kurdish prison.

That year the Moroccan dual national was stripped of his Australian citizenship under anti-terrorism laws for fighting with IS.

When IS was defeated, Ms Rosse-Emile reportedly surrendered to the Syrian Democratic Forces and was initially detained in the Al-Hawl internally displaced persons camp.

The mother-of-two was later transferred, with her surviving two children, to al Roj camp, about 30km from the Iraqi border.

Since 2019 Ms Rosse-Emile has been — through media interviews — pleading with the Australian government to repatriate her, along with the other women and children who remain in the camps.

You don’t know my story, you don’t know why I’m here, it’s not my choice to be here.

Ms Rosse-Emile claimed in a 2019 interview that she did not intend to join IS and only travelled to Syria to practise Islam freely.

However, in the years before she went to Syria, she regularly posted hard-line religious quotes, slogans and videos on social media under her Islamic name.

“It is better for a man that a steel nail be driven through the centre of his head rather than if he touches the palm of a strange woman,” said one Facebook post.

An image she posted in 2012 had the words “Lions of Islam” over the top of various terrorist figures, including al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and Islamic State founder Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

In her most recent interview, Ms Rosse-Emile said her story was “very unique” but refused to answer questions about her husband or how she came to be in Syria.

“I can’t really talk about so much of it here, because it might make problems for me,” she told ABC in February.

“You don’t know my story, you don’t know why I’m here, it’s not my choice to be here.”

In a message directed at the Australian government she said: “Hello, I’m here. Can you just come and get me finally and my children and all the other Australians here? We’re ready to start our lives afresh.”

Ms Rosse-Emile is among 11 women currently attempting to return to Australia from the al Roj detention camp in the Syrian desert.

Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke said last week that one of the women was subject to a temporary exclusion order on national security grounds, which could prevent her from returning for up to two years. The identity of that woman has not been revealed.

The Australian government has not repatriated any citizens from Syria since 2022, though a group of six Australians quietly returned from Syria in late September.

The two women — believed to be sisters — fled the notorious Al-Hawl detention camp in north-east Syria with their four children in June before flying from Beirut to Melbourne in September.

When she said, ‘Oh, I was tricked’ and all that, it’s not true.

This comes after Guy Rosse-Emile told The Nightly in November that his daughter left Victoria to live under the caliphate and was not “tricked” into joining Islamic State.

Mr Rosse-Emile said Kirsty willingly went to Syria with her older husband in 2014.

“They went there with a view of establishing themselves in Islamic State in Syria under the caliphate,” he said.

“When she said, ‘Oh, I was tricked’ and all that, it’s not true.

“I’m telling you the truth about Kirsty and her husband. They went to live under the caliphate and they didn’t have any children then.”

Speaking to The Nightly from East Africa, Mr Rosse-Emile said he was “heartbroken” to discover his daughter had gone to the war zone.

“They said they were going to live in Morocco, because (her husband) Nabil Kadmiry is from there. They are very rich people. They got a lot of property in Casablanca,” he said.

“I said, ‘well, she’s going to have a good life’ and then lo and behold, seven or eight months later she rang her mum on WhatsApp and said that she’s in Syria.

“I said to (his then-wife) Emma, ‘What the hell are they doing there?’ And I’m very upset with that bloke Nabil. I don’t want to see him again.”

The 76-year-old said he has not spoken to his daughter since she left Australia.