Amira Karroum, also known as Amira Ali (1992âÂÂ2014), was an Australian woman who traveled to war-torn Syria at age 21, after her husband Tyler Casey went there to be a jihadi fighter. Shortly after her arrival, she was killed alongside Casey in Aleppo. She was the first Australian woman to die in Syria. Her brother-in-law, Guy Staines, is also reported to have died there, in 2017.
Amira was born and raised in Queensland in the Gold Coast area. Her father, Mohamad Karroum, was Lebanese-Australian and her mother was New Zealand-Australian. Mohammad, a non-practicing Muslim, operated a kebab shop and his daughters attended St. Hilda's School. After graduating St. Hilda's in 2009, Amira studied graphic design at the Queensland University of Technology. She became a more religious Muslim upon reaching adulthood and began wearing a face veil.
In 2012, Amira moved to Sydney. For about six months, she lived in an apartment in the suburb of Liverpool. While there, she wrote an Arabic language reference to Osama Bin Laden on her unit door. Other residents of the building complained she was rude and verbally abusive and left trash and furniture in common areas. One neighbor claimed Amira threatened him, telling him "you don't know who I know," and prompting him to call police.
She met Tyler Casey while he was working for Street Dawah, prosletyzing Islam on the streets of Sydney. Street Dawah has been described as "extremist Islamist" by Greg Barton, the Director International of the Global Terrorism Research Center at Monash University. Amira's cousin was also part of Street Dawah. Casey was a joint USA-Australian citizen and a Muslim convert, born in Adelaide and raised in a fundamentalist Christian home north of Brisbane. He spent his teenage years in Colorado in the United States, where he became involved with gangs, then converted to Islam, then became radicalized and worked with Al Qaeda. He was an international emissary for Al Qaeda and was trained for warfare in Egypt and Yemen, and received religious training in South Africa.
Amira married Casey in April 2013. She called her father to ask his consent to the marriage, and Mohamad initially refused, as he was in the Philippines at the time and he had never met Casey. Mohamad allowed the marriage to go ahead after Amira begged him.
After her marriage, Amira listed her occupation as "Slave of Allah" on her Facebook page. Her profile image was a picture of a garden with the phrase "Jannah is the motive". She also posted, "Islam is my identity. The burqa is my shield. Jannah is my destination." On Australia's federal election day in September 2013, she posted, "Today I witnessed hijabi girls promoting democracy with their T-shirts and their stupid voting papers. Kuffars! May Allah guide these strangers!" After the Sydney anti-Islam film protests, she urged people to "Smash the cop cars." On the 10th anniversary of 9/11, she posted, "Worst effing night. I'm proud of being a Muslim!!!!! 10 years of war in Afghanistan for two towers."
One of the other worshippers at the mosque the couple attended later described Casey as "a very quiet, very gentle, a good natured person" and said "he wanted to go and help" in the Syrian Civil War. He said he had heard Casey had secured accomodation and sent for Amira, and said that the couple knew the situation in Syria was dangerous.
A few days before Amira's departure from Australia, her parents visited her for a few hours. Amira cried, and when Mohamad asked what was wrong, she told him she hated Australia. After she left her half-brother said the family had "no idea" how she came to be in Syria.
In June 2013, Amira's husband Tyler Casey, who had adopted the name Yusuf Ali, flew to Singapore and then traveled to Syria, saying he was going to do humanitarian work, but some of the other worshippers at his mosque believed he was joining the jihad.
After his departure, Hamdi Alqudsi became close to Amira, and promised to give her a new car and a thousand Australian dollars in cash, telling her, "I want you to feel like IâÂÂm your older brother. I want you to feel like you trust me." He would later be charged with recruiting seven men and assisting them in their travels to Syria to fight with Jabhat Al Nusra and other jihadist groups.
On December 17, 2013, Amira left Australia. She told her family she would be visiting friends, then doing humanitarian aid work after that. The last time her family heard from her, she was in Denmark. Her cousin paid for her trip. Her half-brother thought Amira was going to meet with Casey in Copenhagen. She did spend a week in Copenhagen but did not meet her husband there. After leaving Copenhagen, she joined Casey then joined her husband in Syria and they settled in Aleppo. At the time, Casey was working for Jabhat Al Nusra.
In her final Facebook post, dated December 23, 2013, Amira wrote, "By Allah no matter how much you have in this Dunya it will never satisfy you."
Only three weeks after Amira left Australia, Amira and Casey were killed together in their house in Aleppo. Initial reports said the couple was killed by the Free Syrian Army, but later reports said they had in fact been killed by militants associated with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, Jabhat Al Nusra's rival. Their bodies were reportedly dismembered afterwards. Casey and Amira were both 22 years old when killed.
Amira was the first Australian woman to die in Syria. When Mohamed in Australia found out the news of her death he experienced a mild heart attack. Amira's sister, Rose, shared a tribute to her and Casey on her own Facebook page, calling Amira "an exceptional woman, a humanitarian" and saying her sister and brother-in-law had been "parted by something bigger than them." She deemed the couple "martyrs". Her sister said the family would attempt to bring AmiraâÂÂs body back to Australia.
Rose and Amira had been close to each other prior to her departure to Syria, and both were devout Muslims. Rose had been aware of her sister's plans to go to Syria, and had chosen not to share them with anyone. The Masjid Noor mosque in the Sydney suburb of Granville held a memorial service for Amira and Casey, at Rose's request.
Her family issued a statement saying, "Publicity and harassment of family and friends, which seems to be fuelled by the media, adds to our trauma and distress and does not help with our grieving process" and asked the media to not sensationalize the tragedy.
Amira had left a life insurance policy worth $300,000, which the insurance company refused to pay due to her terrorist links. Her father argued the policy should be paid out because, he said, his daughter had been "tricked" into traveling to Syria and that it was not illegal at the time for an Australian to travel to Syria.
In an interview with A Current Affair in December 2014, Mohamed Karroum also announced plans to sue the Australian federal government and then-Prime Minister Tony Abbott over his daughter's death, saying "They are responsible" and "The Australian Federal Police and ASIO are not doing their job. It is a fact." He said Casey had been under surveillance but had been allowed to leave the country, and that federal police had raided Amira's home and seized her phone, tablet and computer, but did not prevent her from leaving the country only one day later. Mohamed said his daughter Amira was "used as bait" to help catch senior Al Qaeda figures. Mohamed said he had coped with the loss of his daughter by devoting himself to his Muslim faith. He also said he was no longer speaking to Amira's sister Rose, as she had known about Amira's plans to travel to Syria and said nothing, and he was unable to forgive her for that. He said if he had known of Amira's plans he would have stopped her.
Rose was married to Guy Staines, a man who had embraced radical Islam while serving a prison sentence for murder. In 2015, less than two years after his release from prison, Staines left Australia and disappeared. He was thought to have traveled to Syria or Iraq. In July 2016, his family in Australia said they had not heard from him in over a year. In the spring of 2017, Staines was reported to have been killed in a drone strike.
In July 2023, it was reported that Rose was dating a man the Daily Telegraph called an "Islamic State sympathizer." That month, the man pleaded guilty to breaching a terror supervision order.
Between June and October 2013, Hamdi Alqudsi helped seven people travel to Syria to join the civil war there. In connection with this, he was charged with providing services with the intention of supporting hostile acts in Syria. He was not, however, charged with recruiting Amira. One of the men he assisted was arrested before he could leave Australia, two later returned to Australia, two were killed, and two others' fates are unknown as of August 2016.
In 2016, Alqudsi was sentenced to eight years in prison for helping them. In court, he cried and said he thought ISIL was a force for good that would help Syrian civilians but that he "should have minded my own business" and collected charitable donations for Syrian civilians. The judge said she was not convinced he was truly remorseful or understood the seriousness of what he had done, and said, "I do not regard his prospects for rehabilitation as good."
While still in prison, in 2019, Alqudsi was charged with knowingly directing the activities of a terrorist organisation called the "Shura" which discussed terror attacks in Sydney. He was convicted in September 2022 and sentenced to fifteen years in prison, with a non-parole period of eleven years and three months.