'Fed-up' British jihad fighters seen as a key weapon against Islamic State

The British-accented militant who delivered blood-curdling threats to the West before apparently beheading two American journalists has become, for most Britons, the masked face of foreign fighters in Syria.

But more typical, experts say, may be the Briton who recently called home from the front lines to say he was fed up.

"The whole jihad was turned upside down," the militant recently told Shiraz Maher, a senior researcher at the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation at King's College London. "Muslims are fighting Muslims. I didn't come for that."

The fighter's disillusionment, experts say, has become a recurring theme among some of the thousands from around the globe who have answered Islamic State's call for holy war but have found the reality significantly less glorious than what they were promised.

For those trying to stem the flow of fighters and combat extremism in Britain, it's a perspective that could be the perfect antidote to Islamic State propaganda. Yet it's one seldom, if ever, heard, in part because of government policy that focuses on keeping Britons who have gone to war from returning home, and locking them up if they even try.

"A lot of them feel trapped by the Islamic State not letting them go, and by the British government not letting them back," said Richard Barrett, a former director with the foreign intelligence service, MI6. "But if you want people to understand that it's bloody terrible out there, you have to hear from these people."