The father of an Australian doctor who travelled overseas to join Islamic State says he was stunned to learn his son is reportedly still alive, adding that he will accept whatever decision the government makes about what happens next.
Tareq Kamleh, who was born in Perth, became one of ISIS’s most recognisable foreign recruits in 2015 after appearing in slick propaganda footage dressed in Western-style medical scrubs and cradling babies while calling on other health workers to join the terror group.
In 2017, supporters of Islamic State circulated claims online that Kamleh — widely dubbed “Dr Jihad” — had died in Syria during the brutal final battle for Raqqa.
But new information indicates Kamleh, now 41, survived and is being held in a maximum-security prison in Baghdad, where Iraqi counter-terrorism authorities are questioning him.
A government source has claimed the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade was alerted by US agents in 2022 that Kamleh was alive, but chose not to intervene.
The same source also alleged DFAT was aware last year that Kamleh had been taken into custody and was being held in prison.
“It was their secret until today. They decided not to get involved when I and organisations like the Red Cross pleaded for Tareq’s young boys to be rescued. They wanted to stay out of it,” the source told The Australian.
DFAT has declined to respond to the allegations.
Perth-born doctor Tareq Kamleh appeared in propaganda videos, urging other medical professionals to join the notorious death cult
Until recently, Tareq Kamleh’s parents thought that he had been dead for almost a decade
Until a few weeks ago, Imad Kamleh and his wife Aisha thought that their only son had been dead for almost a decade.
He received a call from a Red Cross representative confirming that his son was still alive but in ill health.
Kamleh’s parents say they are hurt and shocked by their son’s actions, while their daughter now wants nothing to do with him.
In 2015, Kamleh told his family that he was heading to Melbourne for a holiday but instead went to Syria to join ISIS.
‘His mum is still very, very upset and very angry. She will never forget it, I’ll never forget it. Our only son, he had graduated and become a professional, he could have been useful in helping the community. And then suddenly, from one day to the other, we’re in this situation,’ Imad told the publication.
Kamleh is one of 13 men linked to ISIS hoping to be released from custody and return to Australia, despite previously vowing never to return.
Kamleh is wanted by the Australian Federal Police under an active warrant for terrorism offences, which include joining and recruiting for a banned organisation.
Imad will respect whatever decision the Albanese government makes regarding his son’s plans to return home.
A source claims that DFAT has known that Tareq Kamleh’s survival since 2022 but decided to not get involved
The Perth-born doctor vowed to never return when he left Australia in 2015
Kamleh’s parents had no idea about his plans to join ISIS
‘My understanding is that if he comes, he will be picked up from the airport and taken to the prison here. So there is no future here for those guys,’ Kamleh’s father said.
The Albanese government insisted that no assistance has or will be provided in returning to Australia.
‘As far as I’m concerned, I never want that person to return to Australia,’ minister Clare O’Neil told Sunrise on Wednesday.
‘He’s obviously made a decision to join a violent death cult and he needs to be accountable for that.’
Perth-born Kamleh completed his medical studies at Adelaide University, where he worked as a paediatric registrar at the Adelaide Women’s and Children’s Hospital until 2013.
He moved to north Queensland where he worked at Mackay Base Hospital. He later relocated briefly back to Perth, where he continued his medical career until March 2015.
Kamleh reportedly told fellow mosque parishioners at the time that he was heading overseas to work with Doctors Without Borders.
Instead, he flew to Kuala Lumpur. He then travelled to Turkey and crossed the border into Syria, where he began appearing in ISIS propaganda videos weeks later.
Kamleh previously vowed to never return to Australia.
‘I made a very well-educated and calculated decision to come here, it did not involve any brainwashing,’ Kamleh wrote in a letter to the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency in 2015.
‘I have come here as there are locals suffering from normal medical conditions despite being surrounded by war, with an overt lack of qualified medical care.
‘Is it not my humanitarian duty to help these children also? … or only kids with white skin and blue passports?
‘I never intend to return to Australia, I have finally returned home.’
