Zehra Duman, who fled Australia as a teenager to marry an Islamic State militant, is understood to be among those whose citizenship was cancelled.

Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton is not taking a backward step.

"The advice in relation to some of these women is, far from being dragged there by their husband or boyfriend, they've gone willingly and/or they're as hardcore as some of the male terrorists that they've seen in Syria and Iraq," he told 2GB Radio on Thursday.

"These are people that would in our judgment - not all of them, but some of them - have the capacity and the potential to come back here to cause a mass casualty event."

The three cancellations brings to 17 the number of dual nationals who have lost their Australian citizenship since 2015.

There were concerns that stripping Duman of her Australian citizenship could leave her two infant children stateless.

But Prime Minister Scott Morrison insists that's not the case.

"My advice is that the citizenship of children of those for whom their citizenship is cancelled ... is unaffected," he told reporters in Sydney.

"So any reporting that suggests otherwise, based on my advice, is false."

Turkey has begun an attack on north-eastern Syria, launching a large scale airstrike and ground offensive against Kurdish targets in the region.

There are fears the incursion could put Australian women and children trapped in the al-Hawl camp at significant risk, as Kurdish soldiers desert the site to defend the Syrian border.

Even still, Mr Dutton will not rush to extract the Australians.

"I don't think it should come as any surprise to people when we say that we're not going to send our soldiers or our staff through the foreign affairs department or my department into harm's way to rescue people of this nature," he said.

"We're looking at individual cases, and in some cases it may make sense for us to intervene but in the majority of cases I think people realise that if you go into a war zone and you take your kids into a war zone that's a decision you've made as a parent.

"The fact that you made a decision to destroy the lives of your children, that's something you'll have to live with, but my job is to protect kids back here and make sure that Australians are as safe as possible."

Australian Associated Press