Meet the Brit ex-Army soldier fighting ISIS in Syria who boasts of killing 26 jihadis – but says head count is ‘not enough’
The hired gun said he had been been fighting for the Kurds for four years and has been jailed for doing so on trips back to the UK
A BRITISH ex-army mercenary fighting ISIS in Syria has boasted he has personally killed 26 militants - but it is "not enough";.
The hired gun said he had been been fighting for the Kurds for four years and has been jailed for doing so on trips back to the UK.
He was pictured but not identified by Russian media outlet and told journalists: "I simply love killing, and it doesn't matter who my enemy is: ISIS, Assad or Barzani (the leader of Iraqi Kurdistan)."
"Give me a gun, and I'll fight."
The Russian report stated: "When asked about number of militants he had killed, he calmly replies: '26'.
"And after a short pause he adds: 'Not enough yet'."
The British mercenary was pictured at a camp an hour's drive from the capital of Iraq's Kurdistan region.
The camp is named after Rustem Cudi - a German national, real name Gunther Helsten, who joined Kurdish militias in Syria and was killed while fighting ISIS.
But he will soon leave the base near to travel to Rojava in northern Syria to fight ISIS for the third time, he told Russian journalists.
He had "happened to kill Russians", he admitted, but also fought along side them, and they were "very good on the battlefield".
He said: "I went to fight for the Kurds for the first time in 2013.
"There was no sign of the caliphate back then."
Before that he had served in the British army and was recruited as a mercenary by former comrades, he said, sharpening his knife as he spoke.
Lenta reported: "It turned out that the British mercenary had been through a serious experience - his military unit had been surrounded, and he was among a few who survived."
"The death of his peers only made him more bloodthirsty" but there was "no personal hatred involved".
He was quoted as saying: "I know that Russia is supporting Assad and the Shias.
"Many interests came together here."
He added: "In such a situation, it is very hard to understand what's good and what's bad.
"And my thing is to fight, not to understand what's happening."
There are "certain cycles" to his life - "a trip to Syria, war, return home, a term in jail. And all over again," said the Russian report.
"The Kurdistan Worker's Party and its Syrian branches are considered terrorist organisations in Britain, so the British mercenary regularly does a jail term.
"He'd be happy not to go home but he simply has no other opportunity to see his parents."
The Russian lenta journalist wrote: "In the evening, after dinner, this Brit continued sitting at a shared table and doodling in a notebook, singing along to Metallica's song For Whom the Bell Tolls playing in his headphones.
"Among his drawings, I saw an image of a samurai or 'God of Death', as the Brit called him."
At the camp were Turkish Kurds from the Kurdistan Workers' Party or PKK along with mercenaries who came to fight ISIS.
But one Kurd criticised the British mercenary.
"We want to change people, not to kill them," he said.
"If all the terrorists are shot dead, others will substitute them.
"It is not right to come here just because of desire to kill."
In August A British ex-squaddie who fought ISIS in Syria was charged with terrorism offences in Turkey.
Joe Robinson, 24, from Leeds, risked his life when travelling to fight ISIS for a Kurdish militant group in 2015.
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