‘Dr Jihad’ dad’s shock after discovering ISIS doctor son is alive nearly a decade after his ‘death’ – as explosive claim emerges govt knew for years

The father of a doctor who left Australia to fight for Islamic State says news his son is still alive came as a shock and that he will respect any government decision over his future. 

Perth-born Tareq Kamleh became a poster boy for ISIS in 2015 when he appeared in propaganda videos wearing western-style surgical scrubs and holding babies, urging other medical professionals to join the notorious death cult.

Two years later, ISIS fighters shared online posts claiming that Kamleh, nicknamed ‘Dr Jihad’, had been killed in Syria during the final battle of Raqqa.

It has since emerged that Kamleh, now 41, is alive, held in a high-security prison in Baghdad. He is being interrogated by Iraqi counter-terrorism officials.

A government source has since revealed that Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade received a tip-off from US agents about Kamleh’s survival in 2022 but opted to ‘not get involved’.

They also claimed that the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade knew last year that Kamleh was detained 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 comment on the claims.

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.

‘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.’