Foreign IS recruits no longer find jihad glamorous

Jihadis, who travelled to Iraq and Syria to join the Islamic State (IS) are begging to be allowed to return home, complaining they were forced to do menial tasks, media reported Tuesday.

Foreign recruits have been writing to their parents with feeble excuses that range from having to clean toilets and to their iPod was no longer working or that it was getting too cold, the Daily Mail reported.

A series of weepy messages leaked to the French daily Le Figaro revealed a number of young French Muslim converts are having second thoughts about signing up to IS.

"I'm fed up to the back teeth. My iPod no longer works out here. I have got to come home," one of the foreign IS recruits was quoted as saying.

Another wrote: "I've done hardly anything but hand out clothes and food."

"Winter is beginning. It's starting to get tough."

A third fighter said he was "sick" of his time with the militant group, adding: "They make me do the washing up."

Dozens of other recruits, who are reportedly now working with French lawyers, have collected texts and messages that suggest the jihadis felt "cheated" into joining IS.

They have appealed for clemency from the authorities. One lawyer said that the longer they remain in Iraq and Syria, the more chance they have of becoming "time bombs" when they return.

The report also mentioned the Indian national, Majeed, who went to syria to fight for the militant group and was later arrested by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) for terror-related offences when he arrived back home.

Majeed told NIA officers he was sidelined by the jihadis for whom he fetched water and performed other lowly tasks such as cleaning toilets, instead of taking part in the deadly offensive like he wanted.

Al Qaeda announced in September a new chapter of its extremist movement charged with waging jihad in South Asia.

Tanvir Sheikh, father of one of Majeed's friends who was still missing in Iraq, said he felt betrayed by his son.

Sheikh said his son Fahad had a job offer in Kuwait but instead he decided to travel to Iraq to join the extremists.

It came days after a court heard how a British man was jailed for conspiring to attend a terror training camp in Syria after he returned home after whining to his girlfriend about his treatment abroad.

Another British man, Mohommod Nawaz, 30, was also jailed for four-and-half years along with his younger brother Hamza Nawaz, 24, who was given three years.

The brothers brought back bullets and took the pictures on their mobile phones to remember their time in the jihadi camp.

Photos from the brother's phones showed the strict daily schedule at the camp included two sessions of military training, two sessions of "Islamic lessons" and "lights out" at 10 p.m., the report said.

Mohommod's messages to his girlfriend reveal he was far from happy in Syria.

He wrote: "I fear we may never see each other again. I was crying bares (lots) last night."

Radicalised foreigners have been drawn to IS, which has conducted a series of mass executions and other atrocities since launching its offensive in Iraq and Syria in June, the report said.

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the group's reclusive leader, made his first video appearance in Mosul in July to announce his vision for a self-styled caliphate.