A political row is brewing in Australia over the fate of orphans of Islamic State parents languishing in a camp in Syria.

The three children were taken from Sydney to Syria in 2014 by their parents, who have since died.

The eldest, Zaynab, 17, who now has two children of her own and is pregnant with a third; Hoda,16; and Humzeh, eight, were discovered in al-Hol displacement camp earlier this month by their grandmother Karen Nettleton.

Their father, Khaled Sharrouf - Australia’s most notorious Isil jihadist - was stripped of his citizenship after a picture emerged of one of his younger sons being made to hold the severed head of a Syrian soldier.

However, Ms Nettleton’s attempt to take them out of Syria has been beset with problems.