KUWAIT: According to records, many Kuwaitis have fled their homes and abandoned their families in Kuwait to join the Islamic State terrorist organization in Raqqa, the capital of the so-called caliphate in Syria, and pledged allegiance to its leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi.

Some of these Kuwaitis relented and returned to Kuwait full of regret, others are still in the quest for winning the company of ‘hour’s’ in heaven, while some have perished in suicide bombings or executions.

Jihadists have revealed that dozens of Kuwaitis are fighting with IS, and that 2014 witnessed the biggest exodus of Kuwait’s to join IS. The recruits were mainly from Jahra, but recently, Kuwaitis from urban areas have started joining IS as well. A friend of a repentant Kuwaiti IS member who fled back to Kuwait said that his friend had a military background and was subjected to a seven-month training camp, before he was appointed as a military trainer and operations commander.

But he once saw Syrian fighters fly above IS troops without bombing them, and this raised many questions in his mind, that were responded to by throwing him in prison. The friend added that the prison was attacked by Jaish al-Islam militants to free a Saudi, and they helped him reach Turkey, where he was arrested and handed over to the Kuwaiti embassy. Another recruit was Abu Monzer (Fahd Al-Enezi), who was executed by Jaish al- Islam for accusing other Muslims of being non-believers.

Yet another recruit was Abu Anwar Al-Kuwaiti (Abdul Aziz Anwar Al-Mass), who grew up in South Surra and travelled to the US to study technology, but ended up heading to Turkey to join IS after contacting them on social media. He eventually blew himself up in an attack on an Iraqi military convoy. —Al-Rai