‘It’s jihad, innit, bruv’: meet the British Muslims going to fight in Syria

Turkey, Syria, Iraq: ‘It’s jihad, innit, bruv.’ The young British Muslim cut an absurd figure in ski mask, dark glasses and hoodie. He had not used that exact phrase but it would have summed up our faintly comical encounter. I remembered a security analyst’s remark that British Islamists in the Middle East are best explained by Four Lions, the mock documentary about some Yorkshire jihadis on an incompetent quest for martyrdom.

He called himself ‘Obeid’ and he described, in a Leeds or Bradford accent, how he had arrived in Turkey on a tourist visa. Then, speaking no Arabic, and barely knowing one end of a Kalashnikov from the other, he had managed to sign up with one of the most feared and bloodthirsty jihadi commanders, a Chechen credited with 300 beheadings.

He had not taken part in any fighting, or even any beheading, though. So far, his jihad had consisted of guard duty outside a base.