The mother-in-law of Australian Islamic State fighter Khaled Sharrouf is terrified for the safety of her daughter and grandchildren and is pleading with the Abbott government to allow them to return to Australia.
Speaking through a lawyer, Tara Nettleton's mother, Karen Nettleton, said she is terrified her daughter and five grandchildren, including the 7-year-old boy who was photographed in Syria holding a severed head, will become targets.
In a statement provided by her lawyer Robert Van Aalst of Lawyers Central, she said: "There have been a number of false statements made about me, my only daughter Tara, and my five grandchildren.
"I am terrified that misunderstandings can make them targets.
"I plead with the Australian government and its institutions to put politics aside and do everything in their power to assist my family's safe passage and return to my home. They are young Australians in real danger.
"I am gravely concerned for their safety, as recent media reports can make them vulnerable to attacks from all sides."
Fairfax Media reported on Wednesday that Tara Nettleton's family may have been trying to help her and the children return to Sydney.
Agencies recently traced Karen Nettleton on a trip to Malaysia in what police suspect was an effort to arrange her repatriation and that of her children.
The children of Sharrouf may be allowed to return to Australia, but the Abbott government has warned their parents will face the full force of the law if they try to come home.
Immigration Minister Peter Dutton said on Wednesday the image of his son holding a severed head depicted an "act of savagery" and showed the parents had "destroyed" their lives.
Khaled Sharrouf has paraded his young sons on social media.
"We are a compassionate country that provides support to children in particular who are in need," Mr Dutton told Sky.
One government MP on Wednesday called for the children to taken from their parents, while Opposition Leader Bill Shorten likened the situation to "child abuse".
It is a serious offence to fight with the Islamic State. Jihadists who return to Australia face up to 25 years in jail.
Prime Minister Tony Abbott suggested that minors caught up in fighting abroad could also face Australia's terror laws.
"Well the point I make is that crime is crime is crime," Mr Abbott said.
"If a minor commits a crime, again there are standard provisions for dealing with that. Criminals will be punished, whether they're young, whether they're old, whether they're male, whether they're female, whether they're criminals abroad or criminals or at home."
But Mr Abbott also said the children of jihadists would be treated no differently to other children of criminals.
"There are criminals who go to jail all the time and the children of these particular criminals will be dealt in the same way that the children of criminals are normally dealt with," he said.
Mr Shorten told Seven's Sunrise program he would request a briefing from the government.
"I think those children are probably the victims of effectively child abuse," he said.
When asked how he would feel if Sharrouf's children went to the same playground as his own, Mr Shorten replied: "Well, that's really tough, isn't it?"
"We need to get to the facts. They will be scarred. I can't understand any parent who would take their children to these war zones and subject them to those things that we saw in the photos. That is so far away removed from what parents who love their kids would do. I just don't understand what would be in the mind of these people - this parent, this father to do this. It defies all parenting, love and logic, doesn't it?"
Liberal backbencher Alex Hawke said Sharrouf and Nettleton's decision to join Islamic State and take his children to a war zone should result in their "immediate disqualification for parenthood".
He said the children should come back to Australia and rehabilitated but their parents stripped of their citizenship and never allowed back into the country.
"You can't go over and seek to support this and then try and come back when you realise its not all that great," he told Fairfax Media.
It is understood Sharrouf's three young boys and two teenage daughters are viewed by some senior security sources as victims of their father's extremism. However, the case of Nettleton is more vexed.
She is suspected of helping to spirit her children to Syria via Malaysia after Sharrouf flew out of Sydney in December 2013 using his brother's passport.
- with Nick McKenzie, Richard Baker, Nick Ralston
