A man who fled Australia to join Islamic State in the Middle East is now desperate to come home.
Mahir Absar Alam left Australia in 2014 after seeing a news story on TV about the plight of people in Syria, according to News Corp.
But the former Swinburne University accounting student says he's never actually fought for ISIS and instead just acted as a nurse.
“I don’t have any problem with the Australian government or my country,” he told The Australian.
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“I love Australia and I didn’t do anything wrong in Australia. I want to come back.”
He's been begging to return since 2019 and claims his interview with the Australian newspaper is the first contact he's had since he spoke to ASIO officers three years ago.
Alam has been detained in the city of Hasakah since 2019 after Kurdish forces captured the region and forced those who were working with ISIS into prison.
News Corp reports his wife and two sons are now living somewhere close to where he is imprisoned.
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However, that area is still 'under threat' from Islamic State.
Alam understands that if he returns to Australia he could face prosecution and jail time, however he'd rather be back home rather than sit in a Syrian jail.
He spoke to the ABC back in 2019 and said he's no threat to Australia if the government approves his request to come home.
Alam said he's 'seen rivers of blood flow' while living in Syria and has been horrified to see 'innocent women and children killed for nothing but going shopping, nothing but sitting at home trying to feed their family'.
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“I’m willing to do literally anything to come back to Oz right now. I’ve been willing to come back for a long time but it’s just been very difficult to come back," he explained to the ABC.
“People need to understand that we didn’t rape, we didn’t kill, I didn’t set anyone on fire.
"We’re not that majority that’s going to come stab someone with a knife – we’re not going to do anything horrible like that.”
The 26-year-old added that he was once reprimanded for downloading movies and TV shows like Game of Thrones. Alam said the morality police smashed his 'beloved' hard drive, which only fuelled his desire to return to our shores.
"We just want to go back home, even stay with our parents, I don't even want to go outside the house," he said.
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"Even if they take me to Antarctica to live there, I just want to be as far away from here as possible."
Topics: Australia
Stewart Perrie