Disgruntled jihadists who travelled to Iraq and Syria to join the Islamic State are begging to be allowed back home after complaining they were forced to do menial tasks and had to suffer without their creature comforts.

Foreign recruits have been writing to their parents with feeble excuses that range from having to clean toilets and doing the washing up to the fact their iPod was no longer working or that it was getting too cold.


One Indian jihadist, Areeb Majeed, 23, left for Iraq with three friends in late May amid fears by authorities that ISIS militants were attempting to recruit from India's large pool of young Muslim men.

But the engineering student flew home on Friday to Mumbai after whingeing to his mother and father that he was made to carry out lowly tasks rather than fighting on the front line. (cedih, gak dihargai )

A number young French Muslim converts are also having second thoughts about signing up to ISIS as revealed in a series of weepy messages home that were leaked to newspaper Le Figaro.

One said: 'I'm fed up to the back teeth. My iPod no longer works out here. I have got to come home.'

Another wrote: 'I've done hardly anything but hand out clothes and food,' he said.

'Winter is beginning. It's starting to get tough.'

A third fighter said he was 'sick' of his time with the militant group, adding: 'They make me do the washing up'.


They and dozens of other recruits are reportedly now working with French lawyers who have collected texts and messages that suggest the jihadists felt 'cheated' into joining ISIS.

They have appealed for clemency from the authorities, with one lawyer saying that the longer they remain in Iraq and Syria the more chance they have of becoming 'time bombs' when they return.

It came as Majeed was arrested and charged by India's elite National Investigation Agency (NIA) with terror-related offences when he arrived back home.



Majeed told NIA officershe was sidelined by the jihadists for whom he fetched water and performed other lowly tasks such as cleaning toilets, instead of taking part in the deadly offensive like he wanted, the Press Trust of India news agency reported.

He phoned his family to say he wanted to come home after suffering an unexplained bullet wound for which he did not get proper medical attention, the agency said late Sunday.

'Only after I begged them, I was taken to a hospital,' he was quoted as saying by NIA officers.

'There was neither a holy war nor any of the preachings in the holy book were followed.'

India's moderate population of 150 million Muslims have traditionally not been drawn into sectarian conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, but the case of the four raised concerns about online recruitment.

Al Qaeda announced in September a new chapter of its extremist movement charged with waging jihad in South Asia, prompting several Indian states to be placed on high alert.

Tanvir Sheikh, the father of one of Majeed's friends who was still missing in Iraq, said he felt betrayed by his son.

Sheikh said his son Fahad was offered a job in Kuwait but instead decided to travel to Iraq to join the extremists.

'He had got a job offer from Kuwait with a salary of three lakh rupees (£3,000) but he ignored that and instead took up arms.

'Now what happens to his future?' Sheikh told the Indian Express newspaper on Monday.

'I feel let down by my son. He had a bright career ahead of him but he took advantage of our love and betrayed us.'