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The rheumatology doctor who helped terror group morph into ISIS

ISIS'-former minister for health-Kefah Basheer Hussein is calm and collected, almost too composed and smug for a capt...

Posted: Mar 2, 2018 3:04 PM
Updated: Mar 2, 2018 3:04 PM

ISIS'-former minister for health-Kefah Basheer Hussein is calm and collected, almost too composed and smug for a captured-man. A corner of his mouth twitches in what appears to be an attempt to hide a smirk. He answers "no comment" to yet another-CNN-question about the murky years-when al Qaeda in Iraq-went underground only to reemerge as ISIS.

Hussein says he was a high-level ISIS operative -- not a fighter-on-the battlefield but someone who-formed the backbone of the-terror-group. An intellect-in the shadows, he helped-ISIS to survive and morph over the years.


A rheumatology doctor by training, Hussein, 39,-served ISIS and its previous incarnations for over a decade and a half.-For the bulk of that-time, he-remained largely unknown to intelligence agencies, the US military, and the Iraqi government.


The US invasion of Iraq

Hussein was raised in Tal Afar, a predominantly Turkmen city-in Iraq, situated on one of the main roads between Mosul and the Iraqi-Syrian border.-People acquainted with him in high school describe him as "ambitious," "smart" and "very competitive." Like any teenager with big hopes, Hussein set out for the big city when he graduated.

Hussein was training as a doctor in Mosul when the US invasion of Iraq began in 2003.-Seeing a foreign occupying army in his country burned him to the core. His family were zealous converts. In the 1970s, their family broke away from the Shia faith of their tribe to Sunni Islam, according to a neighbor from Tal Afar. Adherents-of-Salafism, a strict and puritanical interpretation of Sunni Islam, their anger was primed as they watched events unfold in Afghanistan and witnessed the fall of Saddam Hussein. The more raids the US military carried out in their hunt for Saddam-Hussein's henchmen and, later, in their targeting of the then-nascent insurgency, the angrier Hussein appeared to grow.

"The whole family had a violent reaction," the neighbor says. "When they (Americans) came to Tal Afar, Kefah was part of the first group that was fighting the Americans -- their house was one of the houses that was used for planning operations against the Americans," the neighbor said.


"We saw many things that happened in front of us, rapes, killings, corruption, the Americans stealing money,"-Hussein-tells CNN.



He was detained briefly in Mosul, according to one ISIS expert. Hussein was accused of being a member of al Qaeda but was released after a short stint in-jail and was not mistreated.

Hussein himself was evasive on the subject.-"At that time, I had security issues but they didn't know anything about me and I changed my address," he says. Asked if he was in US custody, he-responded: "maybe."

A US troops surge prompted by the awakening fighters forced ISIS underground, and Hussein continued his day job at the Ibn Sina Hospital in Mosul.-One-doctor who worked with him describes him as a "strange" and "distant" figure.



Organ trafficking and blood removal







Links to ISIS leadership





"But these people like him, I call them the black box of ISIS because they have ties to the top tier and to the local leaders. He may not have a direct tie, but he knows important information.-And-they are trained to be killed and not confess all they know," al-Hashimi says.



An unapologetic view

Throughout our interview, it is clear that Hussein is careful about what he discloses, unwilling to let information slip, but at the same time wanting to appear cooperative. He is oddly apologetic about-refraining from answering certain questions. After a string of "no comments" he adds: "I have a trial you know."


He is unapologetic in his belief in the-Zarqawi doctrine, in ISIS' brutal version of Sharia, or Islamic law. Still he says he was propelled to leave the group after ISIS veered off what he saw as the "righteous path."

"It is a right way of-asking people to-adhere to-Sharia, of course I believe in it... many stuff happened that misdirected the caliphate from its righteous path,"-he says. "But I always thought about the medical help that I can provide, especially the administrative stuff, so I was a bit late when I left them."




Alongside him was another Iraqi man who-Turkish authorities-identified as being one of the men under his command. On that same day, Turkish authorities detained half a dozen foreign ISIS members, including a Dutch and a British-national who were on a red notice alert, essentially an international arrest warrant.

Security forces routinely round up hundreds of-suspected-ISIS members -- ranging from-the-lowly fighters to logistics organizers to men like Hussein who make up the-terror group's-brain trust.



Asked if he wants ISIS-to-survive, Hussein again-answers "no comment."



Hussein likely won't have a role in the next ISIS incarnation.


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