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Omar Hussain Sky News via YouTube
islamic state
British Isis fighter hits out at group over poor table manners and stealing shoes
Omar Hussain’s blog about his time with the group paints a strange picture.
A BRITISH MAN who travelled to Syria to fight as part of Isis has listed a number of cultural issues that exist within the group.
Specifically, the fact that Islamic state fighters don’t seem to have great table manners, don’t respect privacy, sometimes act childishly and have a propensity for using each others’ shoes.
Omar Hussain is one of 700 individuals who have travelled to the region to join the extremist group, according to the BBC.
He has previously come to the attention of the media due to threats that he has made to carry out attacks on the United Kingdom.
Blog post
In his Tumblr blog, written under the pseudonym Abu Saeed al Britani, he has listed a number grievances about the local Isis recruits.
He describes the habits of Syrians and Arabs as “bothersome” and advises anyone thinking of travelling out to the region from Europe to give it careful consideration.
Hussain starts by saying that Arabs and non-Arabs are united in the region “under one banner”, but that cultural differences could be “annoying, and at times somewhat stressful”.
What are his gripes?
He describes Arabs unplugging his phone without asking permission to be able to charge their own phone, “even if there is no real need for them to charge their phone at that current time.”
He states how, “It’s not an unsual sight to see a fully grown Syrian man acting like a child and playing around with other brothers.”
On using other people’s shoes, he says:
In the west, it is common knowledge to walk out of a room wearing the same pair of shoes that you wore while entering the room… However here in Shām, our Syrian brothers have a very peculiar philosophy whereby they believe that everyone can share each other’s footwear, irrespective of foot size.
On table manners, he says, “Every day one of us would be appointed to serve the food, and when it was my turn, I entered the room with a handful of spoons and a bucket full of boiled eggs; and as soon as I entered, I was pounced upon on by everyone in the room.”
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