For ISIS jihadis in Syria who originally hail from Western countries like France, life is rough. It’s especially tough as winter sets in and your iPod breaks.
In letters reprinted by Le Figaro newspaper, one of the 376 Frenchmen currently waging jihad writes:
"I'm fed up. My iPod doesn't work any more here. I have to come back."
Another writes:
"I've basically done nothing except hand out clothes and food," wrote one, who wants to return from Aleppo. "I also help clean weapons and transport dead bodies from the front. Winter's arrived here. It's begun to get really hard."
Still another complains:
"I'm fed up. They make me do the washing up."
A fourth writes:
"They want to send me to the front, but I don't know how to fight."
The Islamist commanders have taken note that the French are beginning to want to leave. According to Le Figaro, a Frenchman is rumoured to have been beheaded when he told the emir that he wanted to leave as his friend had before him.
"Everyone knows that, the longer these people stay there, the worse it will be because having watched or committed attrocities, they become ticking time bombs," one lawyer was quoted saying in Le Figaro.
"But, when it comes to having a discussion about whether France is ready to accept repentants, no politician is willing to take the risk. Imagine if one of these ex-jihadis is involved subsequently in an attack?"
“Of the approximately 100 jihadists who have returned to France, 76 are in prison,” reports The Telegraph.
In some of the letters the French jihadis complain that life with ISIS isn’t as glorious as it had been depicted – instead of waging noble jihad, they are left to do the menial dirty work.
This treatment may not be limited to Western recruits either.
Areeb Majeed, an ISIS recruit from India who recently returned to his home country, said that he was “completely ignored and asked to clean the toilets and arrange water for those battling with the security forces,” reports the Times of India.
Chillingly, Majeed also told questioners that ISIS fighters “raped many a woman there.”
"There was neither a holy war nor any of the preachings in the holy book were followed,” he said.