What turned 'playboy' Aussie doctor towards ISIS?
The young Australian doctor hailed as the face of Islamic State’s health service 'suddenly morphed' from a ladies' man into a strict Muslim, former colleagues have claimed.
Tareq Kamleh, 23, featured in the terror group's latest propaganda video urging medical professionals to join IS and help launch a healthcare service in Syria.
Kamleh, who referred to himself as Abu Yusuf in the video, said he had travelled from Australia to offer his services as part of his ‘jihad for islam’.
Former workmates have made explosive claims that the former Adelaide University student was a 'sexually manipulative fraud' who exploited his patients and girlfriends.
Today it was alleged that his attitude shifted dramatically following a camping trip, with those who knew him at the time describing it as a 'complete personality change.'
"He went on a camping trip with some people – I don't know who they were or what they told him, but it was after that," a former hospital colleague told Fairfax.
"I didn't think we had too many radical fundamentalists up in Mackay.
"I never really saw him after that, he hung around but never with us. He went from a fun-loving success with the ladies type of bloke, a bit of a playboy, to straight hard-line fundamentalist saying no, he would never have sex again unless he was married."
Prime Minister Tony Abbott is outraged an Australian doctor has joined Islamic State extremists.
"Doctors should be saving life not taking life, that is at the heart of the medical ethos," Mr Abbott told reporters in France.
