Tareq Kamleh

Tareq Badawi Kamleh (born 1985), known by his nom de guerre Abu Yousef al-Australie, is an Australian citizen and medical doctor who went to Syria to join the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. After joining ISIL, he worked in paediatrics in their Syrian capital of Raqqa, in the Islamic State Health Service. He appeared in two ISIL propaganda videos, in April 2015 and July 2017. Kamleh is currently wanted by the Australian Federal Police for terrorism offenses. Kamleh was believed to have been killed in the final battle for Raqqa in September or October 2017. In 2026, it was reported that Kamleh is in fact alive and imprisoned in Baghdad, Iraq.

Early life, education and career Kamleh was born in 1985 in Perth, Western Australia. His father was born and raised in Palestine, before migrating to Australia. His mother was born in Germany, before migrating to Australia. She was Catholic, prior to converting to Islam. Kamleh's parents met in Iraq while his mother was working for a German company there. He has an older sister. He attended the Al-Hidayah Islamic School and Lynwood Senior High School.

At 20, Kamleh travelled to New Zealand to attend the University of Otago. Kamleh's goal was to get into the medical school there. After a year, he failed and left the country. He went back Australia where he was admitted to the University of Adelaide, graduating with a Bachelor of Medicine and Surgery in 2010.

After graduating, Kamleh was assigned to paediatric unit in the Women and Children's Hospital in Adelaide in February 2011. After two years, Kamleh transferred to Mackay Base Hospital in Queensland from January 2013. During this time, Kamleh also worked at Alice Springs Hospital. His co-workers called him "lazy". He was a registered doctor in Western Australia prior to 2015. Consequent to Kamleh's appearance in an ISIL recruitment video, the Medical Board of Australia confirmed on 21 June 2015 that it would be suspending his medical registration to "manage serious risk to public health and safety".

According to media reports, Kamleh’s peers saw him as somewhat of a playboy. He was a practicing Muslim, but up until 2014 his lifestyle was not consistent with the teachings of Islam; he had multiple romantic affairs and drank alcohol regularly. As an intern, he won Royal Adelaide Hospital's "Golden Speculum", a joke award for the intern who sleeps with the most members of staff. According to people who knew him, he was a "sexually manipulative fraud" who slept with other doctors, nurses and even patients. He was also forced to leave a shared house he was living in, due to "improper conduct" with a female housemate.

Starting in 2014, Kamleh told friends he had reconnected to his faith and given up alcohol and women. He became increasingly religious. Kamleh later said he had once suggested to his mother that he might travel to Turkey to help with Syrian refugees, and his mother threatened to call the authorities and have his passport canceled if he did. Kamleh appeared in three minutes of the 15-minute video, which was called "health services in the Islamic state" and appeared to be filmed in a medical facility. He appealed to Muslim medical personnel to join him in Raqqa because, he said, "Muslims are really suffering from not lack of equipment or medicine but lack of qualified medical care." She and Kamleh had a son, Yousef, in 2016. Kamleh also had another wife, a Somali nurse who worked with him at the hospital. Kamleh used the nom de guerre "Abu Yousef Al-Australie", aka "Abu Yusuf". He was also nicknamed "Dr. Jihad" by the media.

In July 2017, Kamleh appeared in a second ISIL propaganda video, which first showed him tending to a child who had been wounded in an airstrike, then showed him sitting in a dark tunnel dressed in combat gear with a tactical vest and carrying an AK-47, fighting for ISIL. In the video he said ISIL fighters "love death more than you love life." He directly addressed Donald Trump, claiming ISIL could not wait to battle American forces. He also addressed the world's Muslims, saying, "We are under continuous bombing here and we are fighting hard to try to hold the lands of Islam... What more will it take for it to be a justified cause for you to come here to fight for Allah’s sake?"

Possible death and fate of family Kamleh is currently wanted by the Australian Federal Police for crimes of terrorism and faces up to 25 years in jail if he returns to Australia. An arrest warrant has been filed for him in Adelaide, claiming offences he apparently committed in Raqqa in 2015 after leaving Australia, including joining and aiding a terrorist organization.

Kamleh was reported to have died during the final battle for Raqqa in September or October 2017. Bradley and their son were reportedly killed in an airstrike in a village near Hajin in November 2018. After ISIL lost the last of its territory at the Battle of Baghuz Fawqani, Bradley’s daughter and Umm Yakeen were sent to the Al-Hawl refugee camp, then to the Al-Roj refugee camp. The woman was hiding her because she did not want her to be taken to the United States, where the girl had been born. In July 2021, the Syrian Democratic Forces raided the section of Al-Roj where Umm Yakeen and the child were living, and rescued the by then eight-year-old girl. She was sent to a rehabilitation center pending transfer to the United States, where her relatives live in the Chattanooga, Tennessee area. He is believed to have retreated during the Battle of Raqqa with other ISIL members and survived for two years undetected, working as a field doctor, until he eventually surrendered to or was arrested by the Syrian Democratic Forces in March 2019. He was then extradited to Iraq and has been imprisoned there ever since. He is currently one of 13 men linked to ISIL who are seeking repatriation to Australia. The Australian government had reportedly been aware he was alive since at least 2022, and told no one, including Kamleh's parents and sister back in Australia.