Late in July, we remarked, with some amusement, that Jihadi John, the ISIS executioner who became famous for his starring roles in slick videos depicting the beheading of Westerners, was leaving the terrorist group [4] because he feared other members - let’s just call them “jealous jihadis” - would kill him out of envy.
As Jihadi John’s story makes clear, it’s not all kittens and Nutella for members of ISIS, and indeed, even among brothers-in-arms united in the global war against the “Great Satan” and its allies, not everyone gets along.
Well, it turns out that pettiness within ISIS isn’t confined to jealousy over another member’s rise to fame. As The Washington Post reports [5], a 27-year old former supermarket security guard from Britain who left to fight with ISIS in Syria and Iraq has a laundry list of complaints about his “brothers,” which include their propensity to steal shoes and the fact that they “see no issue in unplugging your mobile phone to charge their own phone.”
Here are some excerpts from the blog of Omar Hussein [6]:
Here in Sh?m, the Arabs and the non-Arabs are united in one line, under one banner, defending each other’s life with their own blood. However, with the unification of tribes and cultures, there will be clashes which are inevitable. Clashes which arise due to many reasons. Some are due to the level of knowledge which people possess, and some are due to different upbringings and cultures.
On [one] occasion an Indonesian brother was working on his laptop and was using it to speak to his family (or friends) back in Indonesia. After some time he went to go eat so he left his laptop open not expecting anything to happen, as no one really goes through other people’s property without permission, right? Wrong! As he was in the other room eating, an Arab brother went through his laptop and deleted all his conversations the brother was having with his family on his Messenger service.
Another common trait is that they see no issue in unplugging your mobile phone to charge their own phone. Even if it’s your own charger, they would casually take your phone off charge to charge their own phone, even if there is no real need for them to charge their phone at that current time.
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. Nay, it is common sense. However here in Sh?m, our Syrian brothers have a very peculiar philosophy whereby they believe that everyone can share each other’s footwear, irrespective of foot size. Someone who is a size 40 will casually walk out the room wearing your footwear even though you are a size 44, and strangely he may not even realise. Weird? Of course it is.
During rib?t one would be eating, sleeping, and fighting alongside other Arabs. For those of you who have been to university, it’s a bit like uni-life with a group of friends all being together. No doubt this can be enjoyable, however with Arabs around it can be quite frustrating, especially when one notices their sleeping habits.
In rib?t, everyone does their few hours of guarding while the others rest. During night hours, when our shift is complete, we wake up the next person about 5 minutes before his shift. However with most Syrians, you would need to wake them up a good 15 minutes before their shift. Some Syrians are such heavy sleepers that even shaking and kicking them would not wake them up.
Coming from the west, we have certain rules and regulations which we abide by while on the road. These are for our own benefit to prevent accidents and henceforth, complications. In the Arab world however, there are not that many rules for the highway, and one can easily obtain a driving license without any test. Yes I know, very scary indeed!
Many things which may seem illegal or irrational are quite common for Arabs to do. In the west, one is required to look into his side mirrors prior to moving lane or going to a slip road, however an Arab would hardly ever look into his mirrors, even if he is coming onto a busy motorway. Women casually walk on the roads and hardly look over their shoulder to see if a car is coming, nor do they move out the way until you are right besides them horning at them.
The list goes on (and on, and on). We suppose the takeaway here is that if you are a Westerner and are thinking of joining ISIS, you may want to first consider how strange it would be if your friend put on your shoes and unplugged your phone to plug his in...
