British ISIS terrorists didn’t know how bad life would be in Syria under ISIS rule
A British ISIS fighter dubbed ‘Hungry Hamza’ after he whinged about missing fast food now claims he didn’t realise how bad ISIS was.
Hamza Parvez left his comfortable home in west London five years ago and became one of the first Britons to join the terror group as it took over parts of Syria and Iraq.
But, after the extremists were crushed this year, Parvez, now 26, has surrendered to Kurdish forces and is being held in a prison in Syria.
Speaking from his jail cell, he claimed he didn’t realise ISIS were so bad when he went to join them.
Parvez appeared on an ISIS recruitment video after joining the jihadis in 2014, telling British Muslims to follow his example, but was mocked online for moaning about having to give up his favourite KFC and Nando’s meals.
He has lost nearly five stone while fighting for ISIS, and criticised the group over how they distributed food.
He told the BBC’s Quentin Sommerville: ‘I didn’t know there was something waiting for me like that. Most foreign fighters say “We would never have come if we had know the realities of ISIS”.’
He added: ‘Many kids passed away from malutrition… I blame ISIS for it.’
Mr Somerville said Parvez ‘lied extensively’ during their interview and the full extent of his crimes are unlikely to be uncovered.
He questioned Parvez on why he didn’t just leave the group if he hated it so much.
Parvez said: ‘There was many times where I thought time to pack up and leave and there’s many times I did try to pack up and leave but the reality was that it wasn’t as easy as it sounds.
‘It’s a small group of very big fish [in ISIS] which make all the decisions for all the people.’
Parvez has been stripped of his British citizenship and his only chance of getting out of Syria is to move to Pakistan, where he is still believed to have citizenship. His family originally come from Lahore.
He married a Canadian-Pakistani woman in Syria, who is also currently in prison. They have two children together.
Parvez admitted knowing ISIS executioner Mohammed Emwazi, known as ‘Jihadi John’, but claimed he didn’t spend much time with him because he was scared of drone strikes.
He is thought to be one of around 50 British jihadis who have been captured in Syria.
Parvez had a middle-class upbringing in west London, going to Holland Park School and getting a job as an accountant for a hotel firm.
But after convincing his family to finance a trip to Germany ‘for study’, he disappeared, and later appeared online spouting ISIS propaganda from Syria.
He tried to create a social media following after arriving in the Middle East.
In one post, he wrote: ‘Are we content with eating Nando’s every week? Come to the land of jihad and shout Allah.’
But followers back in Britain mocked him for posting too much about food and his pet kitten, who he kept while fighting for the group.
He told followers he had dreamed about ordering food from KFC, Nando’s and his favourite Thai restaurant. He said he missed ‘spicy wings, cake and chips’.
In one post he wrote: ‘Cheese and onion crisps, tropical juice on the floor with my klash [Kalashnikov rifle].’
In 2014, Parvez’s family told of their shock and shame that he had left Britain to join the jihadists.
They said ‘his soul was wasted’ after he fled to Syria, and they ‘feel betrayed’ by his actions.
The BBC also spoke to another captured British jihadi, Zakaryia Elogbani.
The former student of the University of Westminster also joined ISIS five years ago, but had his legs blown off in a rocket attack and now says the group ‘tricked’ people into joining them.
Elogbani has also had his British citizenship revoked and is languishing in a Syria jail.
He said: ‘To anyone that is still immersed by ISIS’s methodology, it’s wrong.’
‘It’s a gang, but they raise the flag of jihad. A lot of people are tricked. Don’t fall into the same trick.’
In recent weeks, ISIS has been dislodged from its final stronghold by a Kurdish-led ground force and coalition air strikes.
Thousands of wives and children of ISIS fighters have flooded in from a string of Syrian villages south of the camp in recent months.
Among the hordes of Syrians and Iraqis, some 9,000 foreigners are held in a fenced section of the encampment, under the watch of Kurdish forces.
Source: Daily Mail
