Australian police raid homes linked to Islamic State "doctor"

Xinhua News Agency

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Australian counter-terrorism police have conducted raids on two homes with suspected links to a supposed doctor who appeared in an Islamic State (IS) propaganda video last year, local media reported on Monday.

The Melbourne man, Mohomed Unais Mohamed Ameen, reportedly fled to Syria in May 2014.

Before he left Australia, Ameen had been identified by the Australian Federal Police as having been an IS sympathizer.

The Australian media was informed on Friday that the federal police had searched the Melbourne properties of Ameen's two ex-wives.

The police's Victorian Joint Counter Terrorism Team would not comment on what, if anything, the raid uncovered, but said there was never any immediate danger to neighboring residents.

The Sri Lankan-born 41-year-old appeared in an IS video last year, imploring other health experts and doctors to join the extremist group's cause.

The Australian Broadcast Corporation reported Ameen arrived in Australia on a student visa in 2001, before flying to Turkey and crossing the border into Syria in the middle of 2014.

In the video, Ameen, who is purported to be a doctor, spruiked IS' health services and physiotherapy program, despite the national broadcaster claiming he had no medical training and only studied a sports coaching diploma while in Australia.

"We have staff from many other countries, physiotherapy doctors from Russia, physiotherapy doctors from Sham, physiotherapy doctors from Australia, from Sri Lanka, Tunisia," Ameen said in the video.

"We have female physiotherapy doctors separately for physiotherapy for females, and for the children.

"I would like to take this opportunity, call my brothers and sisters who have the medical background, medical knowledge, who (are) qualified or semi-qualified.

"We need the brothers and sisters to come and help us, from all around the world, we just need the manpower ... in any medical field."