Hodan Abby

Hodan Abby (born 1996) is an Australian woman who traveled to Syria to join the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant in December 2014. She was 18 years old at the time and accompanied by a female friend; they were the first Australian women to travel independently to the conflict zone in Syria. As of July 2026, Abby was the last known ISIL-linked Australian woman living in Syria. She has been issued a permit to return to Australia.

Departure for Syria Abby lived in Lakemba in Western Sydney, New South Wales. She left Australia in December 2014, accompanied by her best friend, 20-year-old Hafsa Mohamed. Sara only knew Abby by her nom de guerre, but after she was freed she found out Umm Osama was an Australian national and she subsequently identified Abby as her enslaver. Sara said the she spent the first three days in Abby's home locked in a room with no food, and that she was raped by Abu Osama. She said when Abby found out about the rapes, "she beat me and also told me I wanted Osama to sleep with me." At one point, Sara claims, Abby told Abu Osama she would divorce him if he did not stop raping Sara. Abby also, according to Sara, once tried to escape the caliphate in a taxi, but the taxi driver told Abu Osama, who stopped letting Abby go out of the house.

After ISIL lost the last of its territory at the Battle of Baghuz Fawqani in March 2019, Abby was sent to the al-Roj Refugee Camp. Former diplomat Peter Galbraith described her as "very radical" and a "true believer" in ISIL ideology, saying, "She would try to enforce Islamic dress, that she made people... go to their tents [and] make them repent any supposed sins they committed." She had allegedly attacked another woman and hit her with a hammer in 2021, and admitted to receiving instructions and orders from ISIL commanders and passing them on to others within al-Roj. Because of her behavior, Abby was in the camp "prison" twice, in 2021 and 2022. Her father also pleaded with the Australian government to let her return there, saying Abby had renounced Islamic extremism and regretted having gone to Syria.

The exclusion order was supposed to remain in force until February 2028,